New Delhi: Hundreds of agents search for Nancy Guthrie as her case spotlights other families left behind
As hundreds of federal and local agents scoured the Arizona desert and chased down potential leads in the nearly two weeks since Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her affluent neighborhood, families of other missing people are reminded how elusive answers can be.
On the one hand, families who spoke to The Associated Press share in the deep pain that Nancy Guthrie’s children, including the well-known “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, have expressed publicly.
On the other, people like Tonya Miller — whose own mother disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Missouri in 2019 — say they feel frustrated as they watch seemingly endless resources flood into the search for Guthrie.
“Families like ours that have just your normal missing people, they have to fight to get any help,” Miller, 44, said.
Miller’s mother, Betty Miller, is one of the thousands of people who are listed as abducted each year, according to federal statistics. In most cases, families like Tonya Miller’s say it’s a full-time job advocating for a fair and thorough investigation.
The country has been engrossed by the apparent kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, after authorities said they believe she was taken against her will. People in her neighborhood have tied yellow ribbons to tree to express their support.
Multiple news outlets have reported receiving ransom notes, and the Guthrie family has expressed a willingness to pay — although it’s not known whether ransom notes demanding money with deadlines that have already passed were authentic.
In the meantime, several hundred detectives and agents are now assigned to Nancy Guthrie’s investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
FBI spokesperson Connor Hagan declined to say how many of those agents were federal law enforcement, and how many were already assigned in Arizona. He also didn’t clarify how the federal agency prioritizes different missing persons cases.
However, he said agents from the Critical Incident Response Group, technical experts and intelligence analysts are working to bring Guthrie home. There is also a 24-hour command post where dozens of agents parse through the 13,000 tips that have flooded in from the public, among other responsibilities, according to a post the agency made.
The vast majority of people who are reported missing are believed to be runaways — not kidnapped or abducted.
Throughout all of 2024, the latest year that National Crime Information Center published the data, over 530,000 missing person records were entered. By the end of the year, just over 90,000 cases remained unresolved on that list — some going back decades.
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