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By Khaleda Rahman and Toby Meyjes
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Savannah Guthrie will return to the TODAY show on Monday, April 6, more than two months after her mother Nancy Guthrie was reported missing from her home in Arizona.
In the third part of her interview with her colleague and friend Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie spoke about why she had decided to return to the studio for the first time since her mother's disappearance.
The co-anchor, who has not appeared in the studio since January 30 (two days before her mother was reported missing) said she felt returning is "part of my purpose right now."
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“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness, and I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not,” Savannah said. “But I can’t not come back, because it’s my family."
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The Context
Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her home outside Tucson, on January 31 and reported missing on February 1. Authorities believe the 84-year-old was kidnapped, and that drops of her blood were found on her front porch.
The FBI released surveillance footage from a doorbell camera in February, showing a masked man, whom they called a suspect, outside Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the night she disappeared.
But since then, investigators have not identified a suspect or provided the public with information about any significant breakthroughs in the case.
What To Know
In the interview, Savannah said she wants to return to the show "because it's my family."
"I consider this my family, my greater family, and when times are hard, you want to be with your family and I want to be with my family. And so, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'll belong anymore, but I would like to try," Savannah said, in reference to her TODAY colleagues.
“And so I don’t know if I can do it, but I would like to try. I would like to try.”
She also said she would not “fall apart" for the sake of her two children.
“I will do it for my kids,” she said. “I will not fall apart. I will not let whoever did this take my children’s mother from them. I will not let them take my joy.”
In the interview, she also reiterated the family’s plea for anyone with information to come forward.
She said: “We need an answer and someone has it in their power to help. It is never too late and when you do, the warmth of love and forgiveness that will come will be greater than can be imagined.”
In the first two parts of her interview, which aired on Thursday, she revealed that the back doors of her mother’s home were found propped open after she disappeared.
She said: “We thought that she must have had some kind of medical episode in the night, and that somehow the paramedics had come because the back doors (of Nancy’s home) were propped open, and that didn’t make any sense.
”We thought maybe they came and there was a stretcher, and they took her out the back. But her phone was there and her purse was there and all her things. And it just didn’t make any sense.”
What People Are Saying
Savannah Guthrie said in the final part of the interview that aired Friday: "How can someone vanish without a trace? How? Someone knows something, even if that something is someone’s been acting strange for the last seven, eight weeks. Even if it’s just that. Somebody knows. And maybe somebody’s afraid and I understand that. But our hearts are in agony.”
TODAY co-host, Craig Melvin, said on the show on Friday: "She is not going to let sadness win. Her joy is going to be her protest. It is where she belongs. It is where we all want her to be. We cannot wait to welcome her back with open arms here in Studio 1A."
What Happens Next
Savannah Guthrie will make a return to TODAY on April 6.
Authorities and the Guthrie family continue to call for anyone with information about the case to come forward. Anyone with information is urged to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), 520-351-4900 or 88-CRIME or visit tips.fbi.gov.
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