Savannah Guthrie Gives Tearful Message After Ransom Note Claims Mom Nancy Guthrie Is Dead

Savannah Guthrie broke her silence after news broke that media outlets had received a note claiming her missing mom Nancy Guthrie was dead.

The Today anchor spoke out about the revelation in an emotional moment on Tuesday’s broadcast of the NBC morning show.

“I love you guys and I love this place,” she told her co-hosts tearfully. “This is unusual and unprecedented to say the least to be sitting here. But I don’t have any comment on this story and I’m not involved in our coverage — but I can’t pretend I’m not here. And so, since I am, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask people to, to beg people to come forward, somebody knows something.”

“And this is a new story that’s on your radar,” she said. “But this is the life that my sister lives, I live, that my brother lives, that our extended family lives, that our children live every day and we are in agony. And we cannot be at peace. No matter how much I try to come out here every day and smile and find that joy, I will. I promise I will. This is the moment to tell you that we need your help. We’re begging for your help…We love our mom and we’ll never stop looking for her, ever.”

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Sunday marked 20 weeks since Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her home in Tucson, Ariz.

On Monday, NBC News reported that a second note was sent to their Arizona affiliate KOLD indicating that Nancy had died amid her disappearance. While the first letter said she was safe and demanded millions in bitcoin for her release, the second note, sent a few days later, indicated that the apparent abductors did not mean for her to die.

NBC News reported that authorities who examined both letters say they’re potentially credible.

Savannah said in an interview with NBC in March that the family believes the two notes are authentic.

“There are a lot of different notes, I think, that came, and I think most of them — it’s my understanding — are not real, and I didn’t see them,” she said at the time. “But I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”

The FBI tip line is 1-800-CALL-FBI. The Guthrie family is offering a reward for $1 million, on top of the FBI’s reward of up to $100,000.