Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than four months, and investigators have yet to identify or arrest a suspect despite extensive search efforts and hundreds of leads. The 84‑year‑old mother of NBC journalist Savannah Guthrie disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona, home on January 31, 2026, and was reported missing by her family the following day.The investigation, initially led by Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and later joined by the FBI, soon led authorities to believe that Guthrie had been taken from her home against her will.As the case unfolded with each passing day, disturbing twists emerged, including ransom notes demanding millions of dollars, emotional video appeals from Nancy Guthrie’s children pleading for their mother’s safe return, and footage showing an armed, masked individual tampering with the doorbell camera at her Tucson residence.Nancy Guthrie targeted by local worker?As the mystery surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance continues, a leading forensic scientist who spent decades with one of the nation’s largest medical examiner’s offices told Fox News Digital over the weekend that she suspects Guthrie may have been targeted by a local worker who believed her family had money."I find it flabbergasting that anyone would take a woman her age, but what I think is probably the case is that someone in the area, maybe a handyman or maybe a service person, had known or had found out that Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of Savannah Guthrie and said, 'Oh, she must be rich,'" Barbara Butcher told FOX News on Saturday, speaking on the sidelines of CrimeCon Las Vegas.The theory put forward by Butcher mirrors the concerns Savannah Guthrie voiced in her first interview with her friend and former co‑host, Hoda Kotb. During that conversation, Guthrie suggested her public profile may have influenced the crime, expressing fear that her mother was abducted for ransom because of her visibility as a journalist.Nancy Guthrie dead?Butcher, a longtime medicolegal death investigator and host of Oxygen’s “The Death Investigator,” also raised concerns about the absence of a credible ransom demand. She suggested that Nancy Guthrie may have died shortly after the alleged abduction, possibly from shock or an underlying medical condition, prompting the suspect to conceal evidence and disappear before the case could be resolved."My second thought was that after time, when there was no valid ransom demand or any information forthcoming, it's probably likely that Mrs. Guthrie died of shock, fright, heart disease, or whatever it was, very soon after being taken from her home," she added. "And that's just horrifying to me...and so now this kidnapper had nothing and probably, unfortunately, took her body into the desert and buried her there."Multiple rewards have been announced to encourage public assistance. The FBI first offered $50,000 for information on Nancy Guthrie’s whereabouts before doubling the amount to $100,000 for tips leading directly to her or resulting in an arrest and conviction. In addition, the Guthrie family pledged up to $1 million to help locate her.