In the nearly two weeks since Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her affluent community, hundreds of federal and local agents have scoured the Arizona desert and pursued potential clues, reminding other families of missing people just how elusive answers can be.
On the one hand, families who spoke to The Associated Press echoed the deep anguish publicly expressed by Nancy Guthrie’s children, including the acclaimed “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
On the other hand, people like Tonya Miller said they were frustrated as they watched seemingly endless resources pour in to find Guthrie. Her mother disappeared under suspicious circumstances in Missouri in 2019.
“Families like ours just have normal missing people and they have to try to get help,” Miller, 44, said.
Miller’s mother, Bette Miller, is one of thousands of people listed as kidnapped each year, according to federal statistics. In most cases, families like Tonya Miller’s say advocating for fair and thorough investigations is a full-time job.
Guthrie’s investigation is full of resources
The apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie has drawn nationwide attention, with authorities saying they believe she was abducted against her will. Her neighbors tied yellow ribbons to the trees to show their support.
Multiple news outlets reported that the Guthrie family received a ransom note and offered to pay the ransom — although it’s unclear if the ransom note is genuine and the deadline for the ransom note has expired.
Meanwhile, hundreds of detectives and agents are now assigned to the Nancy Guthrie investigation, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
FBI spokesman Connor Hagan declined to say how many of the agents are federal law enforcement officers and how many have been assigned to Arizona. He also did not clarify how federal agencies prioritize different missing persons cases.
However, he said emergency response team agents, technical experts and intelligence analysts were working to bring Guthrie home. There is also a 24-hour command post with dozens of agents parsing the 13,000 tips that come in from the public, among other duties, according to agency posts.
Kidnappings are rare
The vast majority of people reported missing are believed to be escapees rather than kidnapped or abducted.
Throughout 2024, the most recent year for which the National Crime Information Center releases data, more than 530,000 missing persons records were entered. At the end of the year, more than 90,000 cases on the list remained unsolved, some dating back decades.
Of the hundreds of thousands of cases filed in 2024, approximately 95% were considered fugitives and only 1% were listed as kidnapped.
The report said the kidnappers were often parents who did not have legal custody of the children. Kidnapping by strangers is even rarer.
Black and Aboriginal people are overrepresented
The FBI lists the names of five abducted or missing people in its online database of 125 missing or abducted persons, including Nancy Guthrie of Arizona. With the exception of Guthrie, all five from Arizona are listed as Native Americans or otherwise removed from tribal communities.
This racial trend applies to other parts of the country as well.
A disproportionate number of Black and Indigenous people were abducted in 2024, according to a report from the National Crime Information Center. About a third of the 533,936 missing persons listed as abducted in 2024 were black, even though U.S. Census reports show that black people make up only 13% of the U.S. population. Likewise, nearly 3% of missing persons listed as abducted are Indigenous, compared with 1.4% in the United States.
“Everyone deserves to be safe, and when someone goes missing, there should be an immediate, coordinated and effective response,” said Lucy Simpson, CEO of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. “For many Native women, long-standing gaps in resources, coordination, and systemic support for tribal nations make prevention and response more difficult.”
No answers for family members
Experts say attention to high-profile cases can sometimes be a major impediment to law enforcement action. But Savannah Guthrie’s celebrity status has also garnered extensive resources from federal and local governments, including a $100,000 FBI reward for accurate information about her whereabouts that may lead to the arrest and conviction of her captors.
Miller said that was in stark contrast to the help she received in Sullivan, Missouri, where she had to spend her own time and money searching for her mother, who was last seen in her apartment in this town of about 7,000 people. Tonya Miller said a box of fentanyl patches that Betty Miller was prescribed was missing from the apartment, and her prescription glasses were left on the armchair. Her mother’s front door had a large scratch on it that wasn’t there before.
The Sullivan Police Department did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.
Tonya Miller said that despite the suspicious circumstances, local police did not consider her mother’s apartment a crime scene. She had to plead with them to take fingerprints and often urged them to follow up on tips submitted by the public. Over the next few weeks, Tonya Miller organized search groups, printed flyers and held fundraisers to raise a $20,000 reward for her mother.
Tonya Miller said knowing how to help find her mother became increasingly difficult as time went on. She wrote to elected officials at all levels of government, including President Donald Trump.
“I felt so helpless,” Miller said, “because you don’t know what to do anymore.”
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Riedel is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.