E-Paper
What makes Nancy Guthrie's disappearance unusual? Explaining how the case differs from other missing person cases
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos recently said that the Nancy Guthrie case is “unlike anything we’ve seen in years in Tucson.” Here's why it's unusual.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos recently said that the Nancy Guthrie case is “unlike anything we’ve seen in years in Tucson.” He added that a breakthrough could happen any time, but “the real breakthrough” is that “somebody out there knows something, maybe somewhere, somebody’s going to say something.”
Experts also believe that despite various parallels that can be drawn between the Guthrie case and other missing person cases, many details in Nancy’s case are unique, from the victim's age to her celebrity daughter Savannah Guthrie.
Why the Nancy Guthrie case is unique
The circumstances of Nancy’s case are "quite shocking," said Jesse Goliath, a forensic anthropologist at Mississippi State University, according to NPR.
"Usually you hear about smaller children, juveniles that go missing" and attracting national press, Goliath said.
"But having an older woman who's gone missing and having [a daughter] that you've seen on TV every day" is extraordinary, he added.
According to the Justice Department, more than 500,000 people were reported missing in the United States last year. However, Tara Kennedy, media representative for the Doe Network, a volunteer group working to identify missing and unidentified persons, said that high-profile kidnappings are rare.
Kennedy, who has worked with the Doe Network since 2014, said, “I can't remember the last time I heard about a ransom case besides Guthrie. I always associate them with different periods in American history, like the Lindbergh kidnapping, not someone's mother from the Today show.”
Both Kennedy and Goliath described Nancy’s case as “strange.”
Abductions of people in their 80s are rare
FBI crime data revealed that women comprised more than 75% of the victims in the some 240,000 cases of abductions in the US from June 2020 to June 2025. However, only 646 women of those were in their 80s, or less than .2% of all victims. Nancy is 84.
The age group that accounted for the largest number of victims that year was 20-29. They made up just shy of 30% of victims.
Other unusual circumstances
Several other highly unusual circumstances surround the Guthrie case. These include purported ransom notes sent to media outlets demanding millions of dollars, to chilling images of a masked gunman approaching Nancy’s front door before she went missing.
Black-and-white photos and clips show a person wearing gloves, a mask, khakis, sneakers and a backpack, appearing to tamper with the camera at Guthrie’s front door on the morning she went missing. One of the videos shows the person walking up to the door with their head down. The individual’s eyes are visible through holes in their mask.
Goliath said that all of these circumstances taken together creates a scenario that is straight out of a true crime novel. "That's something unheard of,” he added.
The ‘silent crisis’
Goliath said that all missing person cases, and not just Nancy’s, need to be widely broadcast and shared. This increases the chance of bringing someone back home safely.
"We call this a silent crisis," he said, "that there are people missing in the United States, throughout the country that really don't have that same social media representation or a nationwide media representation for their cases."
A patchwork of rules and resources reportedly make it difficult to find standardized data for missing persons. For example, it is only mandatory for law enforcement agencies across the US to report missing persons cases to the federal government if they involve minors.
Besides the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), missing persons data is collected by NamUs (the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System), which the public also has access to. However, only 16 states require mandatory reporting to the NamUs clearinghouse for missing persons cases.
Goliath said that it would be good to have more states adopt NamUs requirements. NPR previously reported that a large portion of the US police agencies were not listed in the system.
"That'd be a help, because it's already a system that exists," Goliath said. "Law enforcement already is doing it. So, let's just have all the states be able to use NamUs."
Nancy was last seen just before 10 pm on January 31 after having dinner with her daughter Annie, and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni. No suspect has been named in her disappearance yet.
