Experts Say Savannah Guthrie’s Mother Was Chosen Long Before She Vanished

As the search for Savannah Guthrie's mom, Nancy Guthrie, stretches into a critical fourth day, investigators and behavioral experts are confronting a chilling possibility.

The disappearance of the 84-year-old Nancy may not have been spontaneous or random.

Instead, specialists now believe the crime was calculated in advance, with the attacker patiently studying his target before striking under the cover of darkness.

Nancy Guthrie vanished late Saturday night from her home in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills, hours after spending the evening with her daughter Annie.

What initially appeared to be a baffling missing-person case quickly escalated into a suspected abduction when authorities uncovered troubling details inside the home.

Investigators found signs of forced entry and noted that Guthrie’s pacemaker stopped syncing with her Apple Watch data around 2 a.m. Sunday.

Officials believe that moment likely marks when she was taken from her bed. More than two days later, law enforcement is racing against time, with the urgency heightened by evidence suggesting she did not leave voluntarily.

Blood found at the scene, along with the fact that Nancy’s phone and essential medications were left behind, reinforced fears that she was forcibly removed.

As public concern intensifies, experts have begun assembling a profile of the individual they believe carried out the crime, drawing on patterns seen in rare but deeply disturbing cases involving elderly victims.

Behavioral analysts say the circumstances strongly suggest that the abductor was not someone close to the family.

Dr. Bryanna Fox, a former FBI special agent in the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit and now a criminology professor at the University of South Florida, explained why forced entry points away from a familiar suspect.

“If it was a family member or somebody who knows the house, they wouldn't have forced entry,” Fox told the Daily Mail. “If she knew them, they would have been likely to have carried out a ruse to get her to go with them and get into the vehicle.”

While experts believe the suspect was likely a stranger, that does not mean the crime was impulsive.

On the contrary, Fox argues that the evidence suggests planning and surveillance. “This was not just a random selection of the victim. This was probably a person or a group of people that selected her, probably cased her pattern of life, what time she goes to sleep, knew that she didn't have security, knew that she lived alone and would be sleeping alone,” she said.

The idea that Nancy Guthrie was watched before being taken has cast the case in an even darker light, raising fears that the abductor had intimate knowledge of her routines and vulnerabilities.

Chris McDonough, a retired detective with the Oceanside Police Department, believes the suspect may not have been entirely unknown to Nancy, even if she did not realize it.

He told investigators that the abductor likely had a reason to notice her long before the crime occurred.

“That could be a gardener or a delivery person or so on,” McDonough explained. “It's somebody who knew that she was around 84 and living in that house on her own. At some point, they had crossed into her environment.”

Elder abductions are exceptionally rare, McDonough and Fox both noted. When they do occur, they are often tied to personal disputes or financial motives.

Nancy’s case does not neatly fit either category, making it especially troubling.

Nancy Guthrie lived in a $1 million home in an affluent neighborhood. Her daughter, Savannah, earns an estimated $7 million annually as one of the most recognizable faces on morning television.

While Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said he does not believe Nancy was targeted because of her daughter’s fame or wealth, the possibility of financial motivation has not been ruled out entirely.

Sheriff Nanos declined to confirm whether a ransom demand had been made, though authorities later acknowledged they were “aware” of a note sent to TMZ demanding millions in Bitcoin. Its authenticity remains unclear.

Dr. Fox explained that traditional ransom schemes are increasingly uncommon due to modern surveillance technology.

“They rarely work,” she said, noting that cameras, electronic monitoring, and cell phone data make such crimes difficult to execute. “It is incredibly hard to pull it off these days.”

Instead, Fox suggested that a financially motivated attacker might attempt to gain remote access to bank accounts, pensions, or retirement funds, possibly transferring money to cryptocurrency to avoid detection.

If money was not the driving force, Fox warned of a far more disturbing alternative.

“That the motivation is purely for violence and thrill-seeking,” she said, adding that Nancy Guthrie fit several high-risk factors, including advanced age, limited mobility, living alone, residing in a wealthy area, and lacking visible home security.

Fox said that based on the evidence, investigators are likely searching for “a male between the ages of 30 and 45, who has a criminal record, is sophisticated enough to know what law enforcement is going to be looking for, and has committed a series of escalating types of crimes.”

She added bluntly, “This doesn't strike me as someone on their first attempt.”

While authorities have not identified a person of interest, the search itself presents daunting challenges.

Investigators are canvassing nearby neighborhoods, reviewing surveillance footage, and eliminating registered sex offenders in the area.

Art Del Cueto, a veteran U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who lives minutes from Nancy Guthrie’s home, cautioned that geography may be one of the case’s biggest obstacles.

Drawing on decades of experience in search-and-rescue and tracking operations, he described the surrounding landscape as brutally unforgiving.

The area is filled with dense desert vegetation, where mesquite and brush create natural cover between homes and roadways.

According to Del Cueto, this terrain can easily defeat even modern security cameras, concealing both people and vehicles from view.

Living near the southern U.S. border also complicates matters. “We're on the southern border. You're dealing with international crime all the time, and there are just too many variables to rule anything out,” Del Cueto said.

He suggested investigators may be withholding details to avoid spooking a suspect, noting, “If somebody gets spooked, they can make it into Mexico in under an hour and a half – that's why authorities may not be sharing everything they know.”

As the hours pass, the sense of urgency continues to mount. For Savannah Guthrie and her family, the hope remains that understanding how and why Nancy was chosen could lead investigators to the person responsible and bring her home safely.