Savannah Guthrie Officially Back on Today After Saying ‘Goodbye’ to Her Mom as Searchers Look for ‘Something Decomposed’
Savannah Guthrie has been absent from her job on the Today show ever since her mom, Nancy Guthrie, went missing. Guthrie instead headed to Tucson, Arizona, to be with her siblings and cooperate with the investigation into her mother’s disappearance. But now, after over one month, Guthrie is back in New York. But does that mean she’s coming back to work?
Guthrie was seen on the Today show set on Thursday, March 5. But she won’t be getting in front of the camera just yet. “Savannah Guthrie stopped by the studio this morning to be with and thank her Today colleagues,” an NBC News spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter. “While she plans to return to the show on air, she remains focused right now supporting her family and working to help bring Nancy home.”
Related: Who are Savannah Guthrie’s siblings?
The show then went on as normal, with Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones opening the 10 a.m. ET hour on the note. There is no date set for Guthrie to return to the program at this point.
Nancy Guthrie disappeared sometime between the night of January 31 and the morning of February 1. She has not been since and, as of today, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI do not have any serious leads.
This all comes after Rob Shuter reported that Savannah Guthrie returned to her mother’s home to say goodbye before heading back to New York. She visited the memorial outside of her mother’s house alongside her sister Annie and her brother-in-law. “She didn’t want it to be a goodbye,” a source close to the family told Shuter. “But she knows she can’t live in limbo forever.” In the memorial, the signs still read “Please come home.”
On a message posted on February 24, Savannah said on social media that she has “accepted” that her mother “may already be gone.” The reward for information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance now stands at $1 million.
“It is day 24 since our mom was taken in the dark of night from her bed, and every hour and minute and second and every long night has been agony since then — of worrying about her and fearing for her and aching for her and most of all, just missing her,” Savannah said. “We still believe in a miracle. We still believe that she can come home. Hope against hope. As my sister says, we are blowing on the embers of hope.”
“We also know that she may be lost; she may already be gone. She may already have gone home to the Lord that she loves, and is dancing in heaven with her mom and her dad and her beloved brother, Pierce, and with our daddy,” Savannah added. “And if this is what is to be, then we will all accept it. But we need to know where she is. We need her to come home.”
Volunteers have been on the ground every day helping search for Guthrie. Tucson resident Lupita Tello, a member of the Mexico-based volunteer search group Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, explained how they search to USA Today. She demonstrated by poking at the dirt outside of the home with a sharp metal rod soldered to a handle, wiggling the rod around, pulling it out, and then smelling it. “If it smells bad like something decomposed, that’s where we start,” she said.
