Savannah Guthrie pleads for answers in mom’s abduction: ‘We need someone to tell the truth’
In this May 4, 2015, file photo, Australian-born presenter, Savannah Guthrie poses alongside her mother Nancy Guthrie during a production break while hosting NBC’s “Today Show” live from Australia at Sydney Opera House in Sydney. (Don Arnold/WireImage via Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie is begging for answers in the abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie, saying that “someone knows something.”
“How can someone vanish without a trace?” Savannah Guthrie said in the final part of her emotional interview with her friend and former co-host Hoda Kotb.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, house in the early hours of Feb. 1, authorities said. Investigators have released surveillance images from outside Nancy Guthrie’s house, but the person who took her remains unidentified.
“Our anguish is real. We need help,” Savannah Guthrie said. “We need someone to tell the truth. I have no anger in my heart — I have hope in my heart. I have love. But this family needs peace — I don’t think we deserve anything more or less than any other person.”
“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,” she said.
As she waits for answers, Savannah Guthrie said she’s leaning on her faith, and is inspired by the deep faith her mother’s had through hard times, like after Savannah Guthrie’s father died when the “Today” host was a teenager.
“I saw her grieve, I saw her world shatter,” Savannah Guthrie said.
“And I saw her get up and I saw her believe and I saw her love. And I saw her hope and I saw her smile and I saw her laugh. I saw her joy. … I saw her faith,” she said.
“She taught me, she taught all of us,” Savannah Guthrie continued.
“I may not do it as well as her, but I will do it. I will do it for my kids. I will. I will not fall apart,” she said through tears. “I will not let whoever did this take my children’s mother from them. I will not let them take my joy.”
“Faith is how I will stay connected to my mom. … And I won’t let sadness win for her,” she said through tears.
Kotb has been filling in for Savannah Guthrie on “Today” since Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. Savannah Guthrie plans to return to “Today” on April 6.
“I’m not gonna be the same,” she said.
But she added, “I want to smile, and when I do, it will be real. And my joy will be my protest.”
Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900.
Relentless rain and flash flooding have inundated parts of Kentucky over the weekend and left at least four dead, Gov. Andy Beshear said. (Richmond Police Department)
(NEW YORK) — A woman was killed on Sunday in Tennessee as she attempted to rescue her son, who had been swept away in high waters, a local sheriff’s office said, as a flash flood threat was in effect for parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, where four other deaths were recorded.
The Grainger County Sheriff’s Department in Tennessee said Mary Evelyn Nicole Manning-Kellione, 39, was killed on Sunday after she went to rescue her son after rising water carried him into a culvert.
“The son was able to surface at the other end and came to safety when he realized his mother was in the water,” the office said in a statement. “Rescue personnel located the individual lodged inside the culvert.”
The National Weather Service (NWS) Prediction Center had upgraded the flood threat on Sunday for parts of Kentucky and Tennessee to a level 3 out of 4 “moderate risk.”
Kentucky residents had been bracing for another round of relentless rain, a day after flash flooding killed at least four people and the governor declared a state of emergency.
The heaviest rain had been expected in southeast Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, including Owensboro and Somerset, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Rainfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour are possible, according to the NWS, and daily totals could reach up to five inches in some parts.
Several flash-flood warnings were issued on Sunday morning as ongoing heavy rain and flooding were reported in southern Indiana and northeast Tennessee. A flash flood emergency has been issued for Metcalf, Cumberland and Clinton counties for ongoing life-threatening flooding, according to the NWS. Between 2.6 and 8 inches of rain have reportedly fallen over these areas.
There have been reports of multiple water rescues with some evacuations and homes flooded in Clinton County. Clinton County and the City of Albany, Kentucky, have issued states of emergency due to ongoing flooding.
Northwest North Carolina, which was hit by flash floods over the weekend, is also at an “elevated risk” of flash flooding on Sunday, according to the NWS.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear provided an update early Sunday afternoon in a video posted to X, saying in part that nine counties in all had declared states of emergency, some of which “got hit with record or almost record amounts of rain in very short periods of time,” he said. Search and rescue efforts remain underway, he said.
Beshear advised residents to stay off of the roads if they can. “Bridges have been wiped out, entire roads have been wiped away and there is still standing and moving water,” he said. He added that he’d activated the state’s price-gouging laws to prevent merchants from increasing prices on essential goods, and had also signed an emergency order “so pharmacies in areas that are hit can go ahead and fill people’s prescriptions that have been washed away or are no longer safe to take.”
The severe weather comes after a weekend of deadly flash flooding that occurred in Kentucky.
More than 10 inches of rain fell on Saturday in parts of the state, prompting flash flooding and deaths.
Beshear announced late Saturday that four people were killed in floods that hit central Kentucky and spread into northeast Tennessee and northwest North Carolina.
“Kentucky, I have some tough news to share,” the governor wrote in a social media post on Saturday, announcing the deaths.
Three fatalities occurred in Madison County, Kentucky, and one flood-related death happened in Jackson County, Beshear said.
According to the Madison County Coroner, of the three fatalities in the county, two of the deaths, one adult male and one adult female, occurred at a residence in Richmond.
The third death was an adult male who was swept away in his vehicle on Tates Creek Road in Madison County, the coroner said.
Beshear declared a statewide state of emergency on Saturday.
“This is a serious flooding event, where teams have already had to conduct multiple water rescues from vehicles and homes across the commonwealth,” Beshear said.
As crews from Kentucky to North Carolina clean up from the storms, a prolonged spell of extreme heat is forecast to settle in across the Midwest and Northeast this week.
Heat alerts have been issued across the Plains to the Ohio Valley and south to the Tennessee and Mississippi Valleys.
An excessive heat warning has been posted for Kansas City, Missouri, through Thursday night.
Temperatures in Kansas City are expected to climb into the 90s on Sunday.
On Monday, widespread highs in the 90s are forecast across the country’s midsection, but high humidity will make it feel hotter.
Excessive heat watches are expected to go into effect for Minneapolis and Chicago on Monday, with the temperature feeling like the triple digits during the afternoon hours.
In Minneapolis, the temperature could feel like 110 on Monday afternoon.
-ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
A man is dead and a woman is injured after a house exploded in Michigan in an attempted murder-suicide, in Kent County, Michigan, on May 26, 2026. (Kent County Sheriff’s Office)
(PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich.) — A man is dead and a woman was critically injured after a home exploded in Plainfield Township, Michigan, on Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s office.
The home was completely destroyed with debris on fire when deputies and fire personnel responded to the scene after nearly 50 calls reported an explosion and house fire around 4 a.m., according to the Kent County Sheriff’s Office.
“The fire was intentionally set, we believe, by the husband at this point, intending to be a murder-suicide at the residence,” Kent County Undersheriff Bryan Muir told reporters.
Officials have not released the names of the man and woman in the explosion, but said they believe “the husband” set the fire, Muir said. The woman was associated with the address, according to authorities.
Two neighbors — a teenager who lived next door and another man who lived nearby — pulled the injured woman from the home after the explosion, according to the sheriff’s office. She was treated on the scene and taken to the hospital in critical condition, the sheriff’s office said.
“We are very proud of them for stepping up and helping someone in need during an extremely dangerous situation,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“Without their actions, it is likely she would have perished in the fire. She has some significant medical-related issues right now and we are hoping for a recovery,” Muir said.
Hours later, a dead man, believed to be the person registered to the address, was found at the scene, the sheriff’s office said.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but investigators preliminarily believe a source of natural gas was released in the basement and used to start the fire, Alpine Township Fire Chief Jeremy Kelly said.
Investigators believe the explosion was a “domestic-related situation at the home,” Muir told reporters.
There are no concerns of any gas leaks or other home explosions in the area, Muir said.
“We want to relay to the family affected by this our deepest sorrows for having to deal with a situation so tragic,” Muir said.
In this Dec. 3, 2019, file photo, Jack Avery of Why Don’t We performs onstage during 106.1 KISS FM’s Jingle Ball 2019 at Dickies Arena in Dallas, Texas. (Cooper Neill/Getty Images for iHeartMedia, FILE)
(LOS ANGELES) — A social media influencer is accused of plotting to kill a pop singer in an alleged murder-for-hire conspiracy that prosecutors say stemmed from a “bitter custody dispute” over their daughter.
The influencer, 24-year-old Gabriela Gonzalez, allegedly conspired with her father and then-boyfriend to hire a hitman to kill Jack Avery, the father of her 7-year-old daughter, several years ago, prosecutors in Los Angeles County said in a press release this week.
Avery, 26, is a former member of the boy band Why Don’t We, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed in a press release.
Sometime between 2020 and 2021, Gabriela Gonzalez allegedly sought the help of her boyfriend at the time, 26-year-old Kai Cordrey, to hire someone on the dark web to kill Avery, prosecutors said.
She allegedly repeatedly told one witness that she wanted Avery dead and discussed hiring a hitman and that the “intended killing was discussed as occurring in Los Angeles and being made to look like a car accident,” the warrant for her father’s arrest stated.
Her father, 59-year-old Francisco Gonzalez, was “deeply involved in the custody conflict” and was the alleged source of the funds for the murder-for-hire plot, according to his arrest warrant.
Francisco Gonzalez allegedly sent Cordrey $10,000 back in April 2021 “as front money to use in locating, hiring and paying someone to kill Avery,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release on Tuesday.
Two months later, Francisco Gonzalez allegedly sent Cordrey another $4,000 “after the alleged hit man asked for the additional funds,” the office said.
“Several days later, Cordrey allegedly requested that Avery be killed within a couple of days,” prosecutors said.
Cordrey spoke to an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman about the alleged murder-for-hire plot in September 2021, during which he allegedly said Avery was the target and “discussed payment and proof of death,” prosecutors said.
“In a subsequent conversation, Cordrey allegedly told the purported hitman that Gabriela Gonzalez wanted the murder to happen and Francisco Gonzalez could pay for the expense,” prosecutors said.
Gabriela Gonzalez, her father and Cordrey have been charged with one count each of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.
Gabriela Gonzalez was arrested on Monday and is being held on no bail, online jail records show. She was arraigned on Tuesday. Attorney information was not immediately available.
Her father was arrested in Florida and is awaiting extradition to Los Angeles County. Court records show he is being represented by a public defender. ABC News has reached out to the public defender’s office for comment.
It is unclear if Cordrey is in custody at this time.
If convicted as charged, all three face 25 years to life in state prison.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the FBI began the “lengthy investigation” before the case was turned over to his office.
“This is a case where the defendants are accused of going to great lengths to find someone to commit murder,” Hochman said in a statement. “Most fathers raise their children to respect the law, but here we have a dad who allegedly helped his daughter and her boyfriend break the law in the most sinister way imaginable.”
Gabrielle Gonzalez has nearly 1 million followers between her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
Her father has a law practice in Seminole County. His firm had no comment on his charges.
ABC News has reached out to Avery for comment.
In an interview on “The Zach Sang Show” last year, Avery said two FBI agents showed up at his residence and that “someone hired someone to kill me.” He did not publicly identify any suspects.
He said he was “traumatized.”
“I stayed in my house for like a month straight. I didn’t leave,” Avery said during the interview. “I was so scared. I was looking out my window every night.”
