Nancy Guthrie is a funny, spunky and clever 84-year-old whose grandchildren crowd around her and cover her with kisses.
“She is full of kindness and knowledge. Talk to her, and you’ll see,” her daughter Savannah said, in an apparent plea to whoever may have abducted her mother.
Flanked by her siblings Camron and Annie, NBC Today show host Savannah Guthrie had a message for her missing mother.
“Everyone is looking for you, Mommy, everywhere,” she said.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen a week ago after a family games night on Saturday.
After sharing a meal and a few card games, a relative dropped her off outside her home in Arizona’s Catalina Foothills desert mountains community.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, she vanished.
Investigators believe it was against her will, zeroing in on a 41-minute window about four hours after she arrived home.
First, the doorbell camera was disconnected. Then, her pacemaker app disconnected from her mobile phone.
“Her health, her heart is fragile. She lives in constant pain. She’s without any medicine. She needs it to survive. She needs it not to suffer,” the television anchor said in the video message.
The 84-year-old has now been missing for seven days.
“We will not rest — your children will not rest — until we are together again,” Savannah said.
Loading…What we know about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance
In the evening of Saturday, January 31, at 9:48pm (local time) the garage door of Mrs Guthrie’s red-brick Tuscan home was opened.
It was closed about two minutes later.
Local authorities believe Mrs Guthrie had likely gone to bed not long after earlier arriving home.
It was not until the early hours of Sunday morning that authorities say things began to change.
At 1:47am on Sunday, Mrs Guthrie’s doorbell camera was disconnected.
Less than 30 minutes later, at 2:12am, surveillance camera software detected movement but no footage was retained.
Authorities say the camera’s owner did not have a subscription to allow for footage to be saved.
At 2.28am, Mrs Guthrie’s pacemaker disconnected from its monitoring app on her phone.
After Mrs Guthrie did not make an appearance at her local church friends and family began to worry.
The timeline of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance released by local authorities. (ABC News Graphics: Lindsay Dunbar)
At 11:56 am relatives visited her home, and found she was not there.
It took them just seven minutes to raise the alarm.
Twelve minutes later, Pima County Sheriff’s Office patrols arrived at the house.
Once authorities began searching the property, they found what has been described as a minimal amount of Mrs Guthrie’s blood on the front porch.
Chris Nanos says he believes Nancy Guthrie is still alive. (AP: Sejal Govindarao)
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Mrs Guthrie was taken against her will, with her wallet and medication left in her home.
“This isn’t somebody that just wandered off,” Mr Nanos said.
“She couldn’t walk 50 yards by herself.”
He also said he believed she was still alive.
“Absolutely, absolutely. There’s nothing to say she isn’t,” he said.
On Thursday (local time), FBI special agent Heith Janke said the agency was investigating an alleged ransom letter sent to media outlets.
The FBI is yet to confirm the authenticity of the notes.
“If those that may have Nancy are watching this, the family is ready to talk, get proof of life,” he said.
“Because there has been no contact after that ransom note went to the media.”
Authorities have also made an arrest over an “imposter” ransom note, saying there was no evidence it had any connection to Mrs Guthrie’s disappearance.
Who is Nancy Guthrie?
Mrs Guthrie is a widow and mother of three. She lost her husband, Charles Guthrie, in 1988 when he had a heart attack while working on an expedition project as an engineer in Mexico.
She also has a connection to Australia. Her daughter, Savannah, was born in Melbourne.
Savannah Guthrie has not been on the Today Show since the disappearance of her mother Nancy. (Supplied: Instagram)
Savannah wrote about the loss of her father in the decades since his passing, describing him as an affectionate and funny man.
“My father was a seemingly unlikely mix of qualities: always strong, sometimes terrifying, loyal to the end, and disarmingly gentle and tender when it counted,” she wrote in 2014.
The NBC host later returned to Australia with her mother Nancy Guthrie, saying it was a lifelong dream.
“For my mum to come back and get to see where she used to live brings back a lot of happy memories with my dad,” Savannah Guthrie told the Daily Telegraph in 2015.
A sign of solidarity from neighbours at Nancy Guthrie’s home in Tucson, Arizona. (AP: Caitlin O’Hara)
Ms Guthrie describes her mother as “a kind, faithful, loyal, fiercely loving woman of goodness and light”.
A week on from Mrs Guthrie’s disappearance, the FBI has offered a US$50,000 ($72,088) reward for any information about her whereabouts.
In a video posted on Wednesday local time, Ms Guthrie delivered a prepared message to whoever had taken her mother.
“We are ready to talk,” she said, her voice shaking.
“We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. We want to hear from you and we are ready to listen. Please reach out to us.”