Hundreds of agents search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother as her case highlights other families left behind – The Mercury News
By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press
As hundreds of federal and local agents discover the Arizona desert and chase a possible clue nearly two weeks after Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her wealthy neighborhood, the families of some missing people are reminded how mysterious answers can be.
On the other hand, families who spoke to The Associated Press share the deep pain that Nancy Guthrie’s children, including “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, have expressed publicly.
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On the other hand, people like Tonya Miller — whose mother disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Missouri in 2019 — say they feel overwhelmed as they watch seemingly endless resources pour in to search for Guthrie.
“Families like ours who have lost their loved ones, they have to fight to get any help,” Miller, 44, said.
Miller’s mother, Betty Miller, is one of the thousands of people who are counted as kidnapped each year, according to state statistics. In many cases, families like Tonya Miller’s say it’s a full-time job that represents a fair and thorough investigation.
Guthrie’s investigation is full of resources
The country has been gripped by the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, after authorities said they believe she was taken against her will. People in his neighborhood tied yellow ribbons to a tree to show their support.
Multiple media outlets have reported receiving ransom notes, and the Guthrie family has expressed its willingness to pay — although it’s not known if the past-due ransom notes were genuine.
Currently, several hundred detectives and agents are now assigned to the Nancy Guthrie investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
FBI spokesman Connor Hagan declined to say how many of those agents were law enforcement, and how many have already been assigned to jobs in Arizona. He also did not specify how the federal agency prioritizes different missing persons cases.
However, he said agents from the Critical Incident Response Group, technical experts and intelligence analysts are working to bring Guthrie home. There is also a 24-hour command in which dozens of agents evaluate 13,000 tips that have come in from the public, among other responsibilities, according to a post made by the agency.
Seizures are rare
Most of the people reported missing are believed to have escaped – abducted or abducted.
Throughout 2024, the most recent year for which the National Crime Information Center published data, more than 530,000 missing persons records were entered. At the end of the year, just over 90,000 cases remained unsolved on this list – some dating back decades.
About 95% of the thousands of cases filed in 2024 are believed to be fugitives and only 1% are listed as hostages.
Usually, the abductor is a parent who does not have legal custody of the child, the report said. It has become rare for a person to be taken by a stranger.
Black and Indigenous Peoples Unlike
The FBI lists five people as abducted or missing, including Nancy Guthrie, of Arizona in its online database of 125 missing or abducted people. All five from Arizona are listed as either Native Americans or missing from tribal communities, except for Guthrie.
That racial trend is true across the country, too.
An estimated number of black and indigenous people were among those arrested in 2024, according to a report by the National Crime Information Center. About one-third of the 533,936 missing people listed as abductees in 2024 were Black, even though the US Census reports only 13% of the US population as Black. Similarly, about 3% of the missing persons listed as abductees were Native Americans, compared to 1.4% of the Native American population in the US at large.
“Everyone deserves to be safe, and if someone is missing, there should be a quick, organized and effective response,” said Lucy Simpson, chief executive of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Centre. “For many Indigenous women, long-standing gaps in resources, coordination, and formal United Nations support have made prevention and response more difficult.”
There are no responses from the families
Experts say that sometimes the attention of high-profile cases can be a major obstacle to legal practice. But Savannah Guthrie’s celebrity status has also garnered more resources from the federal and state governments — including a $100,000 FBI reward for accurate information about her whereabouts that could lead to the arrest and conviction of whoever took her.
That’s in stark contrast, Miller said, to the lack of help she received in Sullivan, Missouri, where she had to spend time and money searching for her mother, who was last seen at her home in the town of about 7,000. The box of fentanyl patches Betty Miller said was missing from the apartment and her prescription eyeglasses were left on a chair, Tonya Miller said. There was a big scratch on his mother’s front door that wasn’t there before.
The Sullivan Police Department did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.
Despite those suspicious circumstances, local police did not treat her mother’s house as a crime scene, Tonya Miller said. They had to persuade them to take fingerprints and often had to encourage them to follow the tips posted by the public. In the weeks that followed, Tonya Miller organized search parties, printed newsletters and held fundraisers to put together a $20,000 reward for her mother.
Tonya Miller said it has become difficult as the years go by to know how to help find her mother. He writes letters to elected officials at all levels of government, including President Donald Trump.
“I feel helpless,” Miller said, “because you don’t know what to do.”
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Riddle is a member of the Associated Press/Reporting America Statehouse News Initiative team. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden stories.
