‘Today’: Savannah Guthrie Details Dreadful Moment She Learned of Mom’s Kidnapping

Savannah Guthrie joined Hoda Kotb for an emotional and tearful conversation for her first Today appearance since her mother Nancy Guthrie‘s disappearance.

The first part of Savannah’s two-part conversation with Kotb aired on the NBC morning show’s Thursday, March 26, episode. She started the discussion by revealing she and her two kids — Vale and Charley — were at Carson Daly‘s house the weekend her mother went missing, while her husband, Michael Feldman, was enjoying a “boys’ trip to go golfing” that she gifted him.

“My sister [Annie Guthrie] called me, and I said, ‘Is everything okay?’ And she said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Mom’s missing,’ Savannah recalled. “And I said, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘She’s gone.’ And she was in a panic. I was in a panic.” (Nancy was last seen at her Tucson, Arizona, home on January 31 and was reported missing the next day.)

Officials were already on the scene when Savannah’s siblings called her. They initially assumed Nancy experienced a medical emergency in the night. However, the back doors were open, Nancy’s personal belongings were still there, and she was not located at any local hospitals. Savannah also clarified that Nancy couldn’t have just “wandered off,” as she was in “tremendous pain,” a bad back, and could only walk down her driveway to get the mail on a “good day.”

Savannah went on to reveal that her brother, Camron Guthrie, quickly figured out the suspected reason for Nancy’s disappearance. “He said, ‘I think she’s been kidnapped for ransom.’ And I said, ‘What?’ I mean, it sounds, like, how could dumb could I be? But I didn’t want to believe it. I said, ‘Do you think because of me?’ And he said, ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, but yeah, maybe.'”

Savannah said she hopes she isn’t the reason for Nancy’s disappearance, but that she and her family still “don’t know anything” about the motive. “To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me — and I just say, ‘I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry to my sister and my brother, and my kids and my nephew, and Tommy, my brother-in-law.’ I’m just, like, so sorry.”

Kotb recalled the initial plea video Savannah and her siblings released via Instagram on February 4. “We did our best to come up with the words to say,” she said. “And I haven’t posted one thing or said one thing that the three of us haven’t decided together. It’s surreal. How is it possible that we are having to make a video speaking to a kidnapper, who took an 84-year-old woman in the dead of night, in her pajamas, with no shoes, without her medicine, this little person? And to beg for mercy.”

As for the reported ransom notes, Savannah said she believes most of them are “not real.” However, Savannah said she thinks the two notes she and her family received and responded to via social media were real. She also described the released security camera footage of a suspect at Nancy’s home “absolutely terrifying,” adding, “I can’t imagine that that is who she saw standing over her bed. I can’t. That’s too much.”

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Savannah expressed her thanks to the authorities and tech companies who helped uncover the security camera footage, and said it was “unbearable” to see speculation spread online that whoever was responsible was someone in her own family. (The Guthrie family have been cleared as suspects.)

She and her family had to “move houses many times” while staying in Arizona amid the investigation, and once had to leave a property in the dark due to onlookers. Savannah noted that people have worked “tirelessly” to bring Nancy home, but her family needs answers to be at peace. “Someone can do the right thing, and it is never too late to do the right thing,” she said. “And our hearts are focused on that.”

More of Kotb’s conversation with Savannah aired on Today‘s 8 a.m. ET hour, during which Savannah said she still refers to her mother in the present tense. She gushed about her “incredible” mom and said Nancy would have been “amazed” by the support she’s received so far. She got emotional over Nancy’s Arizona home, which was her childhood residence. “It’s hollowed ground. My mom loved and treasured that house,” she said, calling the space her “safe haven.”

“It’s really hard to see that violated, and the terror, the terror that she must have felt is unbearable,” she stated.

Kotb asked about how much her kids know about the situation, and Savannah said they would reach out to her while she was in Arizona asking about leads and expressing hope. “We tried to talk to them, we tried to give them a little more certainty than we have, to let them grieve,” she shared.

Reflecting on leaving Arizona to return to New York, Savannah tearfully stated, “I looked out the window of the airplane and just thought, ‘Where are you?’ That desert, that beautiful desert that she loves, [I said,] ‘Where are you? How could I leave you?’ But my mom taught me a lot about grief. Our family knows grief.” (Savannah’s father died when she was 16.)

Savannah said she continues to follow her mother’s former advice of to “decide and do” every day. “She taught me to be strong, but she taught me to be true,” she told Kotb.

She continued, “So, whether she’s on this Earth, still, or whether she’s in heaven, I know where she is. I know who she’s with. But we need to know.”

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