Top TV star’s mum ‘kidnapped from her mattress in the midst of the evening’, cops worry
Police believe Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother was ‘forced to leave’ her home without her phone, wallet, car or vital medication. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos called the situation ‘scary’
Savannah Guthrie with her missing 84-year-old mum(Image: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
The elderly mother of top US TV anchor Savannah Guthrie was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night, police believe. Nancy Guthrie, 84, vanished late on Saturday from her home in home in Tucson’s affluent Catalina Foothills.
She was reported missing by family members just before noon on Sunday after she worrying left behind her phone, wallet, car and vital medication. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said investigators are convinced she was “forced to leave” the residence.
He said: “She did not walk away. We believe she was forced to leave that residence. It was against her will. This is about an 84-year-old woman who is sick, who needs her medications, who in the middle of the night was taken from her bedroom.
“If she is alive, she needs her medication and it’s been well over 24 hours. That in itself could be fatal, and that’s scary.”
Savannah was scheduled to co-host NBC’s Olympic coverage in Milan this week but has been forced to pull out. An NBC source told the Daily Mail: ‘There is no way Savannah will be there.’
Police found the lights on and the front door unlocked of Nancy’s $1million home where she lives alone. While detectives found no signs of forced entry, there were elements of the scene which caused “grave concern”, sparking homicide detectives to assist.
However, Sheriff Nanos stopped short of describing the situation as an “abduction”. When asked if he would call it that, he said: “No, we know she could not walk out of that house. Talking to her doctors, we know she had some physical elements that definitely limited her.”
He added: “She is very sharp witted, of good mind, suffers nothing in the form of any kind of dementia or Alzheimer’s – nothing. So we know she would know what was going on around here.”
Officers believe someone entered the home during the night. Nanos added: “This was, in our opinion, someone entered her home in the middle of the night and removed her. It could be more than one person, we don’t know that yet”.
Nancy was with Savannah Guthrie’s sister having dinner and playing mahjong before returning home on Saturday evening. She was last seen at 9.45pm near her house that evening.
The alarm was raised by her family the next morning when she failed to attend church.
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