Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping could have been an act of retribution against her family, including her famous daughter, Savannah, an expert criminal profiler has suggested.
The 84-year-old mother of the “Today” show presenter was taken from her home near Tucson, Arizona, on Jan. 31. Blood was found spattered on the front porch.
“I think something went very wrong inside the house … because you know, there was blood,” former FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit researcher Dr. Ann Burgess told NewsNation’s “Brian Entin Investigates” on Friday.
The psychiatric clinical nurse specialist also suggested that Nancy may not have been the target.
“Who in her orbit, let’s call it family, could be friends, would be hurt the most [by her kidnapping]?” Dr. Burgess said, indicating that the abduction could have been to retaliate against one of her loved ones.
“And I think you can answer… It’s a very mean, angry, horrible thing to do. And then if it goes wrong, which obviously it did, I think it doesn’t make sense that she would be a target to do more than abduct her,” she added.
Dr. Burgess said that law enforcement would have spoken to Savannah about the possibility that her mother’s kidnapping was tied to her high profile.
“I am sure that law enforcement talked with her about that. Has she had any kind of, over the years, it wouldn’t have to be just recent, did she ever get any bad letters, or anything along that line?” she said.
The expert added that she doesn’t believe the kidnapper would target Savannah’s family a second time.
“If it’s what we call a personal cause, in other words, only to that person does it have meaning, so it’s not like you have a serial offender that he’s going to go out and do this to someone else,” she said.
Dr. Burgess said that she believes more than one person was involved in Guthrie’s kidnapping, making it likelier that the case will be solved “at some point.”
She also called on the FBI to release more information on the case.
“I think there are other small bits of evidence that could be released that people could then have more to be able to, again, hypothesize on or speculate. I think they could let more out,” she said.
Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped in the early hours of Feb. 1, after her Bluetooth-enabled pacemaker disconnected from her phone at around 2:30 a.m., indicating it was out of range.
