A week after Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her Tucson home, investigators spent the weekend searching at least two residences as more details emerged about a ransom note.
The frantic search comes as Nancy’s daughter, NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie, issued a second video appeal to the kidnappers. Sources told The Times the ransom note felt credible because it included details about a specific damaged property and the placement of an accessory in the home.
The Times has not reviewed the note, but sources said it sought millions of dollars for her return.
On Saturday, Savannah Guthrie made a new video plea to the kidnappers of her mother, saying “we will pay” for her safe return.
“We received your message, and we understand,” Guthrie said in the new video posted Saturday afternoon. She sat next to her brother and sister. “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.”
Authorities were at Nancy Guthrie’s home again this weekend as well as at the property of another family member, sources said. They also removed Guthrie’s car from her home. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
No one has been named as a person of interest or suspect.
Guthrie was last seen by her family just after 9:45 p.m. last Saturday, which officials said matched with when her garage door opened and closed that night.
About four hours later, at 1:47 a.m., officials said her doorbell camera disconnected. An empty frame for the camera had been previously noted at her home.
Then at 2:12 a.m., the security camera software at Guthrie’s home detected a person — or an animal — on one of the home’s cameras, but Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said they have not been able to recover that footage and don’t know which camera recorded the movement.
About 15 minutes later, at 2:28 a.m., Nancy’s pacemaker app shows a disconnect from the phone, Nanos said. That appears to be exactly when she left her home, as her phone was left behind.
Her family went to check on her at home just before noon Sunday, after she hadn’t shown up for church. They found she was missing and almost immediately called 911, Nanos said.
There has been no “proof of life” offered by the abductors, officials said several days ago. But Nanos said Thursday officials believed she was still alive.
The letter, sent to TMZ and a local TV station in Tucson, contained a first deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday and a second demand with a Monday deadline, said Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix division. He declined to say what, if anything, was requested at each deadline, or whether there was a threat if the deadlines weren’t met.
On Friday, the fifth day since Guthrie disappeared, Arizona news outlet KOLD reported it received a new note from the alleged abductor. The station did not report details from the new letter, but said that “the new note contains information the senders seem to think will prove to investigators they’re the same people who sent the first note.”
Nancy Guthrie‘s children have been trying to publicly communicate with the abductors.
Her son, Camron Guthrie, issued a video pleading with the kidnapper Thursday afternoon, around the time of the ransom letter’s first deadline.
“Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you,” he said. “We haven’t heard anything directly. We need you to reach out and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward.”
Richard Winton, Grace Toohey
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