A veteran forensic scientist suggested that Nancy Guthrie may have been abducted by a local worker who mistook her for being wealthy, given the status of her “Today Show” star daughter.

Barbara Butcher told Fox News Digital Saturday she found it “flabbergasting” someone would just take the 84-year-old, before speculating, “Someone in the area… had found out that Mrs Guthrie was the mother of Savannah Guthrie and said, “Oh, she must be rich.”

Purported ransom notes ordering cryptocurrency payments were sent to media outlets days after the matriarch vanished – but Butcher has questioned the legitimacy of the demands particularly as there were no follow-ups.
FBI investigators examine the residence of Nancy Guthrie in Tucson, Arizona.A forensic scientist said that she thinks Nancy Guthrie may have been targeted by a local worker.James Keivom for NY Post
“My second thought was that after time, when there was no valid ransom demand or any information forthcoming that it’s probably likely that Mrs. Guthrie died of shock, fright, heart disease, whatever it was, very soon after being taken from her home,” Butcher, a former death investigator for New York City’s chief medical examiner, and the host of Oxygen’s “The Death Investigator, said as she spoke on the fringes of CrimeCon in Las Vegas.

“And that’s just horrifying to me…and so now this kidnapper had nothing and probably, unfortunately, took her body into the desert and buried her there.”

RJ Dreiling, a prosecutor-turned criminal defense attorney, suggested the notes were a tactic used to “throw off investigators.”

“This is someone intelligent enough to completely hide their tracks, including DNA, fingerprints, and electronic data, but also deranged enough to kidnap this woman out of her home and hold her hostage,” he told Hello!
Savannah Guthrie and Nancy Guthrie smiling together.Guthrie is believed to have been taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona.savannahguthrie/Instagram
Guthrie is believed to have been taken from her Catalina Foothills, Az, home in the early hours of Feb. 1 –– but still no arrests have been made.

Embattled Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos emphatically said “No, absolutely not” when asked if he considers the case to be cold.

“There’s way too much work that is ongoing with some of the physical evidence we have and we’re not going to give up on it just because it’s been 100 days,” he told KOLD.

“We continue to work with our labs – whether it’s on the digital end or the biological end DNA – and we continue to do that.

“We continue to work with the FBI .. and several labs across the country to get some resolution on this case.”

Nanos said his team is “committed to one thing and one thing only, resolving this, finding out who did this, and hopefully finding Nancy as well.”

“The reality is simply this: We’re policemen. We’re here to investigate a crime,” he said.

“All the other side issues, the pundits and politicians, we’ll let them do their thing.”

SOURCE: https://nypost.com/2026/06/01/us-news/nancy-guthrie-likely-targeted-by-local-worker-who-believed-family-was-wealthy-veteran-investigator/?utm_campaign=nypost&sr_share=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawSLgWFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeysbWVASPtB7DEiEz8IfelpaXLFptWXUec-BdBr4blIqPoTxM8DXJGvc6QCw_aem_YWdncwAaFSYWpUPFrSG0wPbp-yJo&brid=YWdncwGHbFO3_S8E2gHPNT7rS0FH