Search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother continues as detectives analyze ransom note

The search for television host Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother entered its second full week on Monday, with investigators returning over the weekend for a new search of her Arizona home. They appear no closer to finding her, or identifying an alleged abductor.Detectives are analyzing a purported ransom note giving a deadline of 5pm MT (7pm ET) Monday for Guthrie’s family to pay $6m, a development that prompted the Today show presenter and her siblings to record a video released on Saturday saying: “We will pay”.While investigators believe Nancy Guthrie, 84, was taken against her will from her home near Tucson on the night of 31 January, or early on 1 February, they have not confirmed the authenticity of the ransom note, received on Friday by a local TV station in Arizona.“The Nancy Guthrie investigation is ongoing. Follow-up continues at multiple locations. No suspects, persons of interest, or vehicles have been identified. No scheduled press briefings,” the Pima county sheriff’s department said Sunday afternoon in a post on X. “If any significant developments occur in the case, a press conference will be called.”FBI agents and sheriff’s deputies were spotted at the Guthrie residence in the Catalina Foothills area north of Tucson on Friday, at least the second time they searched the home that authorities designated a crime scene last week after reportedly finding blood and signs of forced entry.Drone footage from Fox News captured one officer poking a long pole into a septic tank on the grounds, and reports said that a vehicle, believed to be Nancy Guthrie’s, was towed away.On Saturday NBC News reported that authorities were also at the Tucson home of Savannah Guthrie’s sister, Annie Guthrie. It was “part of a follow-up search in the normal course of the case”, according to NBC, citing an unnamed law enforcement officer.Meanwhile, Chris Nanos, the Pima county sheriff leading the investigation, has been criticized for attending a college basketball game on the same day the Guthrie family released a second video pleading with the alleged abductors.Nanos, who has bristled at some of the coverage of the disappearance, has said he will not hold any more press briefings until there is a development in the case. He was spotted at the University of Arizona’s game against Oklahoma State on Saturday night, hours after Savannah Guthrie, in tears and flanked by her siblings Annie and brother Camron, released the video.“We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” she said in the video posted on social media. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”Nanos has said every lead was being pursued to find Guthrie, but has also expressed frustration at some of the developments. Software detected movement shortly after somebody disconnected her smart doorbell early on the day she disappeared, for example, but she had no active subscription, so no images were able to be retrieved.“I wish technology was as easy as we believe it is, that here’s a picture, here’s your bad guy. But it’s not,” Nanos told the Associated Press.Savannah Guthrie, who has hosted NBC’s Today show since 2012, has not been on air since her mother’s disappearance, and cancelled an assignment in Italy to cover last week’s opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on Sunday of last week after a parishioner at the church she has attended for decades called a family member to say she was not at a morning service.At a service on Sunday, John Tittle, pastor of St Andrew’s Presbyterian church, said the congregation stood in support of the Guthrie family.“We are seeking to just honor the family’s privacy and their desires. It was communicated to me, ‘pray’. We’re going to keep praying through this horrific ordeal,” he said, according to NBC News.