The children of Nancy Guthrie said Saturday they will pay ransom for the return of their 84-year-old mother, whom investigators believe was abducted from her Tucson home in the early morning hours of Feb. 1.
NBC "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, holding hands with her sister Annie and brother Camron in a video posted to her Instagram page around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, said "we will pay" after receiving a message purported to be from the kidnapper or kidnappers.
A screenshot of a video released by Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released tonight, directly addressing whoever is holding their mother, Nancy Guthrie.
“We will pay,” Guthrie said, pleading for her mother’s safe return.
"We received your message and we understand," Savannah Guthrie says in the video. "We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay."
She was referring to a message sent Friday to Tucson television station KOLD, a spokesman for the FBI office in Phoenix, Kevin Smith, told the Associated Press, as the Pima County Sheriff's Department continued to say Saturday: "At this time, investigators have not identified any suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles connected to this case."
The alleged ransom message was one of several sent to media outlets during the week and forwarded to the Sheriff's Department and the FBI. Investigators have said at least one was being taken seriously and contained information not widely known to the public.
They have not said how much ransom was demanded, nor what was threatened if the deadlines stated in a note — one at 5 p.m. Thursday that already passed, and a second looming on Monday, Feb. 9 — were not met.
"While we advise and recommend, from a law enforcement perspective, any action taken on any ransom is ultimately decided by the family," Heith Janke, special agent in charge of the FBI Phoenix division, said at a news briefing Thursday.
Nancy Guthrie, a retired University of Arizona communications professional lauded by friends and colleagues for community leadership, went missing from her longtime home in the Catalina Foothills, near North Campbell Avenue and East Skyline Drive. Investigators have said blood found on the porch was hers, and that her life is in grave risk with each day that passes because she is without medications she needs to survive. She wears a pacemaker that stopped communicating early Sunday with her phone, which was left at the home when she was abducted, they've said.
Nancy Guthrie
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said officials do not know whether she was targeted because of Savannah's high profile as a network television star, but are assuming both sides of that question for investigative purposes.
Saturday's video was the third by the Guthrie siblings directed to any kidnappers, following one Wednesday of Savannah, Annie and Camron emotionally pleading not only for the safe return of their "kind, faithful, loyal, fiercely loving" mother, but also for proof she was alive in an era when images can easily be manipulated; and a second one on Thursday evening of Camron.
Camron Guthrie said in the Thursday video that the family had heard nothing directly from any abductors or ransom seekers and needed them to reach out and to prove they had their mother. The family had no information on how to directly communicate with any kidnappers or ransom seekers, the FBI's Janke said that day.
Then, on Friday, the Sheriff's Department said a new message was received and investigators were actively inspecting it for authenticity.
KOLD News reported the station received that message Friday morning via email.
"We sent the IP address where the note came from to law enforcement," an anchor for KOLD News, Mary Coleman, wrote on social media. "It is NOT the same IP address as the initial note" received earlier in the week by KOLD, "but it appears the sender used the same type of secure sender to hide their IP address. The new note contains something the senders seem to think will prove to investigators they're the same people who sent the first note."
In Wednesday's video, Savannah Guthrie tearfully pleaded, "She is 84 years old. Her health, her heart, is fragile. She lives in constant pain. She is without any medicine. She needs it to survive. She needs it not to suffer."
She described her mother as funny, spunky and clever, a lover of fun and adventure. "She has grandchildren who adore her. They crowd around her and cover her in kisses."
Savannah, who has written a book about her faith after growing up in Tucson in a religious family, and losing her father to a heart attack in her teens, also spoke directly in that video to her mother, who was reported missing after failing to attend church services Sunday morning:
"Mommy, if you are hearing this, you are a strong woman. You are God's precious daughter, Nancy. We believe and know, that even in this valley, He is with you. ... We speak to you every moment, and we pray without ceasing, and we rejoice in advance for the day that we hold you in our arms again."
Savannah Guthrie was scheduled to be co-anchoring NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics in Italy this weekend but pulled out and rushed back to her hometown after her mother's disappearance, joining her brother, who is a retired F-16 fighter pilot, and her sister, who is a Tucson poet and jeweler, in anguished vigil.
The Sheriff's Department urges anyone with information about the case to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Nancy Guthrie's recovery and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
Separately from the ransom note(s) being taken seriously, a fake ransom demand sent to two Guthrie family members resulted in the arrest of a California man, authorities said Thursday.
The kidnapping has captured the attention of Americans, including President Donald Trump, who told reporters Friday that investigators had developed some "strong clues."
