CNN
By Eric Levenson, CNN
(CNN) — Savannah Guthrie said she believes her mother may have been abducted for ransom because of her fame, the “Today” show host said in her first interview since her mother’s disappearance nearly two months ago.
Speaking to her NBC colleague and friend Hoda Kotb, Guthrie said her brother first raised the possibility that Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped for ransom.
“I said, ‘What? Why? What?’ It sounds so – how dumb could I be but I just, I didn’t want to believe. I said, ‘Do you think because of me?’” Guthrie said. “He said, ‘I’m sorry sweetie, but yeah maybe.’ But I knew that. I hope not. I mean we still don’t know. Honestly we don’t know anything.
“I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom, and somebody thought, ‘That lady has money, we could make a quick buck.’ I mean that would make sense, but we don’t know, but yeah that’s probably. Which is too much to bear, to think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me.
“I just say, I’m so sorry mommy. I’m so sorry. … If it is me, I’m so sorry,” she said.
The interview comes nearly two months after Nancy Guthrie, 84, disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on January 31 in what police believe to be an abduction.
Video from her doorbell camera showed an armed, masked person tampering with the camera at her home that night, and Guthrie’s blood was found on the front porch, according to authorities. Several purported ransom letters demanded millions of dollars in bitcoin for her return, but the family and police did not receive proof of their legitimacy.
The suspect in the video is described as male, about 5-feet-9-inches to 5-feet-10-inches tall and having an average build. His backpack was identified as a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack.
Guthrie and her family have released emotional videos pleading for their mother’s return and asked the public to provide tips on her whereabouts. The family announced a $1 million reward for information leading to her mother’s recovery.
Officials say the case is still active, with a 20- to 24-person task force dedicated to the investigation. “We’re not giving up,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told KOLD, the CBS affiliate in Tucson, earlier this week. The Guthrie family maintains close communication with law enforcement, a friend of Savannah’s told CNN.
Guthrie describes learning about abduction
NBC first released a short clip of Guthrie’s interview on Wednesday and plans to release further clips on Friday. Guthrie and Kotb co-hosted “Today” from 2018 until Kotb’s departure last year.
In the parts of the interview that aired Thursday, Guthrie offered a few new details about her mother and the early moments of the investigation.
She first learned about her mother’s disappearance when her sister called her.
“I said, ‘Is everything OK?’ and she