Nancy Guthrie has been missing for 3 months

The mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie was reported missing from her home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood north of Tucson on Feb. 1 after she did not show up at a friend’s home to watch a virtual church service.

Authorities said they quickly determined she had been taken against her will.

Savannah Guthrie’s return to “Today” on April 6 as her mother remained missing suggested that the investigation into Nancy’s disappearance had stalled.

That the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and FBI had yet to arrest or even publicly identify a suspect in Guthrie's abduction, despite receiving tens of thousands of leads, only reinforced that notion.

Former FBI agents: Investigators likely reexamining evidence

With the search for Guthrie extending from weeks to months, investigators are likely looking back at evidence and interviews to see what they may have missed, according to former FBI special agents who spoke with The Arizona Republic.

A lack of updates from law enforcement didn’t necessarily mean investigators had exhausted all viable leads, but for officials to go weeks without an update or a renewed call for tips seemed strange to Lance Leising, a former supervisory special agent with 23 years at the FBI's Phoenix Field Office.

“There were press conferences, press releases and statements by the family,” Leising said. “All those were very smart, because it kept the attention and drove tips. Now you don’t see that at all, which is odd.”

He said it was possible investigators remained quiet because they had enough quality leads that beseeching the public for more was unnecessary.

“Maybe they don’t have the evidence they need to charge, or they don’t have the evidence they need to ultimately get there,” Leising said. “But they also don’t need the public’s tips because they’ve got a good line on the direction they’re going. Now, that’s a possibility. It’s kind of a hopeful possibility — but it’s a possibility.”

Michael E. Anderson, president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, who had a 28-year tenure with the agency, said the FBI or Sheriff’s Department might have brought in new people to reexamine the case — not because the original investigators did an inadequate job, but rather to introduce fresh sets of eyes that might notice things others might have missed.

Anderson said it was also critical that investigators follow up with the people they’ve interviewed — even if their answers didn’t yield particularly valuable information at the time.

“We’ve had cases where there have been people who remember things at the time they just didn’t think about and have led to the cases being solved years after the fact,” Anderson said. "Hopefully, this case doesn’t go that long. I’m hoping we’ll get some type of breakthrough for the Guthrie family.”

Both agreed that locating Nancy Guthrie alive at this point would be nothing short of a miracle.

Report: FBI analyzing new DNA evidence

The most recent update appeared to come from NewsNation, which reported that the FBI was analyzing new evidence that included hairs found in Guthrie’s home, according to a source close to the investigation.

The FBI declined to comment and referred to a statement made by the Pima County Sheriff's Department, which said it has worked with the FBI since the beginning of this investigation.

“This is not new information,” the Sheriff's Department said in an April 16 post on X, seemingly in reference to news stories about the new evidence. “The private lab we utilize in Florida continues to share information with the FBI lab and other partner labs across the country. DNA analysis remains ongoing.”

The department drew widespread criticism later that day after it published a post that read “Update: Nancy has been located.” It was in reference to a different woman, Nancy Radakovich, being found. The post went viral and racked up nearly 700,000 views.

Soon after Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, the investigation saw its biggest breakthrough on Feb. 10 when the FBI released video and photos of a masked man approaching her home the night she went missing. The footage had been extracted from her Google Nest doorbell camera despite her not being subscribed to a service that stores security video.

The FBI estimated the man is 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall with an average build. He was wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack, which is sold new exclusively at Walmart.

Some ransom notes may have been legitimate, others likely scams

During an interview with former "Today" co-host Hoda Kotb that aired before her return to the show, Savannah Guthrie said she and her siblings treated two ransom notes that demanded millions in Bitcoin in exchange for their mother's safe return very seriously.

"I tend to believe those are real," she told Kotb.

Other notes turned out to be fake, including one that authorities suspect a California man sent to the family despite otherwise having no connection to Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.

Federal prosecutors charged 42-year-old Derrick Callella of Hawthorne, California, after he told FBI agents that he sent two text messages from a voice-over-internet account and made a brief phone call to a member of Guthrie’s family to see whether the family member would respond, according to a criminal complaint.

On the same day, Savannah Guthrie returned as co-host of "Today" for the first time since the suspected abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie. TMZ reported it received new ransom notes from an individual claiming to have seen the missing 84-year-old deceased in Mexico.

The notes' author claimed Nancy Guthrie was in the Mexican state of Sonora, which spans the entire Arizona-Mexico border that lies roughly 70 miles south of Tucson.

Leising and Anderson agreed there was little evidence the note TMZ received was legitimate, with Leising comparing it to white noise or a red herring.

“This case brings out some of the best conduct but also some of the worst conduct in people,” Leising said. “Like fake ransom notes and things like that. It’s just horrible for this poor family that’s traumatized by this.”

Anderson highlighted how someone with actual information leading to Nancy Guthrie’s recovery stood to gain far more than what they were demanding.

“Why wouldn’t somebody come forward and bring that information legitimately through regular channels and claim a reward?” Anderson said. “As opposed to trying to get a quick Bitcoin? It just bothers me tremendously that people are out there exploiting the family and their emotions. But unfortunately, there are people out there like that.”