Nancy Guthrie update: Its been eight weeks since ‘Today’ show host Savannah Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother went missing from her Tucson home. On Tuesday, journalist Ashleigh Banfield brought up a new theory, revealing unsettling details in the kidnapping case.
Speaking on the March 31 episode of Drop Dead Serious, Banfield stated that the suspected perpetrator allegedly used items from Nancy’s own home to execute part of the plan.
“Another detail that really floored me was that the perpetrator used Nancy’s flower pots to do this,” she said. “He took her beautiful flower pots—that I can only imagine she spent time nurturing and making beautiful for her back patio—and he used them for his evil f–king plot.”
Banfield added that the pots were reportedly used to prop open both the back screen door and the back gate. “He took her beautiful flower pots, and he propped open that screen door,” she added, suggesting the setup may have been deliberate and strategic.
The detail has raised further questions. Addressing the unknown suspect directly, Banfield asked, “What’s so fascinating about this is why. Why’d you prop them open? What was the reason that you needed those things to stay open—the back gate and her back kitchen doors, the screen door and the heavy door?”
Separate revelations from Nancy’s daughter, Savannah, have also complicated the timeline. During a March 26 interview on Today, she described the family’s initial assumption – that a medical emergency may have occurred overnight.
“We thought that she must have had, like, some kind of medical episode in the night. And somehow, the paramedics had come because the back doors were propped open, you know?” Savannah said. “We thought maybe they came, and there was a stretcher, and they took her out the back. But her phone was there, and her purse was there, and all her things. And it just didn’t make any sense.”
Savannah further noted her mother’s limited mobility due to chronic back issues, making it highly unlikely she left the home on her own.
“On a good day, she could walk down to the mailbox and get the mail. But most days, not,” she explained. “So there was no wander off. And the doors were propped open, and there was blood on the front doorstep, and the Ring camera had been yanked off.”
