Ex-FBI Agent Says Savannah Guthrie’s Latest Plea Was ‘Deliberate’ Tactic to Reach Kidnapper

Savannah Guthrie shared a statement on a local Tucson, Arizona, station on Sunday (March 22), making a new public plea for the return of her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, who has been missing for over seven weeks.

Former FBI agent Jason Pack spoke to Page Six about Savannah’s latest plea, noting how it was a “deliberate” tactic to reach the kidnapper following a lack of updates from investigators. “The family chose a local television station, not a national platform. That is not an accident,” Pack told the outlet.

Nancy, the mother of Today co-host Savannah, has been missing since January 31, when police believe she was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Since then, investigators have released doorbell camera footage of a masked suspect and shared a description of the potential abductor.

Pack said that NBC and its platforms would likely have aired Savannah’s latest plea if she’d asked. Instead, “They targeted their own neighborhood. That tells you they believe someone local has information, or more likely, someone local has not checked their cameras yet because they assumed somebody else already did.”

Savannah’s plea aired on the local Tucson station KVOA, in which she said, “We are deeply grateful for the outpouring from neighbors, friends and the people of Tucson. We are all family now.”

She added, “We continue to believe it is Tucsonans, and the greater southern Arizona community, that hold the key to finding resolution in this case. Someone knows something. It’s possible a member of this community has information that they do not even realize is significant.”

Savannah urged people to focus on the timelines of “January 31,” the early morning of “February 1,” as well as “the late evening of January 11.”

“We desperately ask this community for renewed attention to our mom’s case – please consult camera footage, journal notes, text messages, observations or conversations that in retrospect may hold significance. No detail is too small. It may be the key,” she stated.

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Pack told Page Six that statements like this are needed to keep the case in the public consciousness, as it is an “uphill fight” to keep the investigation relevant when authorities haven’t held a press conference in over a month.

“When investigators go dark, and the media moves on, tip volume likely drops. That is just the nature of it,” he explained.

Pack noted that just because the case has seemingly gone quiet, it doesn’t mean investigators aren’t working around the clock. He noted that tasks such as “warrant returns, subpoena responses, lab work, and digital forensics” take time. However, he urged investigators to go back to Nancy’s neighborhood and “collect and review footage themselves.”

“Even when a resident says there is nothing on it,” Pack stated. “The resident does not know what nothing looks like to a trained investigator. Sometimes the most important frame in an investigation is the one the homeowner already dismissed.”