A group of volunteers in Mexico spent Wednesday combing through rough desert near the Arizona border after an anonymous caller told them exactly where to dig for Nancy Guthrie. The 84-year-old mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie has been missing since February 1, and this is the closest thing the case has had to a fresh lead in weeks. The caller claimed her body was buried in an unmarked grave just south of the border. By the end of the day, the searchers had found nothing tied to her.
The tip went to a Mexican collective called Buscando Corazones Nogales, a group of volunteers who spend their time looking for missing people and hidden graves. They received the call on Wednesday, June 11, and quickly pulled people together to head out to a remote stretch near the U.S.-Mexico line. Nancy was taken from her home in Tucson, roughly 70 miles north of where the searchers were standing.
What the anonymous caller said
The group’s leader, Ramona Guadalupe Ayala Ortiz, said the caller pointed them to a spot known as Mariposa, which means butterfly in English. It sits northwest of Nogales, Sonora, near the Mariposa Port of Entry. According to Ayala Ortiz, the man on the phone said Nancy’s remains were “in a grave over a stream.” He even described clothing or physical details that searchers could use to confirm they had the right person, she told NBC.
That last part is what made this tip stand out. Ayala Ortiz said this was the first time an anonymous caller to her group specifically named Nancy Guthrie. She believes the caller was a man. She also said this was not the first call. The group had searched the same general area back on May 16 and turned up nothing. The caller then reached out a second time and described a new spot to check.
The search came up empty again
The area the caller described is not random. Buscando Corazones has worked Mariposa before and says it has found more than 25 clandestine graves there and recovered the remains of at least 32 people in past operations, none of them connected to this case. The latest sweep went deeper into the terrain than earlier trips, reaching parts of the streambed the volunteers had not been able to explore before.
The ground out there is brutal to search. It is rugged desert with uneven slopes and dry arroyos where bodies can stay hidden for a long time. Teams reported finding more burial sites and signs of old digging, but nothing pointing to Nancy. State and municipal officials sent security forces to keep the volunteers safe during the dig, and the Sonora State Commission for the Search of Missing Persons pitched in. Despite the dead end, the group says it is not done and plans to keep searching the area.
Arizona authorities say nobody called them
The same day national outlets ran the story, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department put out a short statement on X. They said they were aware of the reports about the tip but had not been contacted by Mexican authorities about it. “This investigation remains active and ongoing, and we will continue to follow up on any credible information,” the department wrote.
So the search across the border was happening without coordination from the people leading the U.S. investigation. That gap matters. A volunteer group acting on a single anonymous phone call is not the same as a confirmed lead from law enforcement. As of now, neither U.S. nor Mexican officials have said whether they think the tip is real or just noise.
How Nancy Guthrie vanished
Nancy was last seen on the evening of January 31. Family dropped her off at her home in the Catalina Foothills, a suburb of Tucson, after a dinner and a game night. Her Apple Watch disconnected in the early hours of February 1. By midday she was reported missing after she failed to show up at a friend’s place to watch a virtual church service.
Investigators quickly came to believe she had been taken against her will. Bloodstains found at the scene were tested and confirmed to be hers, including blood on the front porch. Sheriff Chris Nanos has said flat out that he thinks she was abducted. Nancy was described as a vulnerable adult because of her age, mobility issues, and the fact that she relied on daily medication.
The masked man on the doorbell camera
On February 10, the FBI released footage pulled from Nancy’s doorbell camera the morning she disappeared. It showed a masked, armed man. Investigators described him as roughly 5 feet 9 to 5 feet 10, with an average build, carrying a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. Gloves that appeared to match the ones the man wore were found about two miles from her home.
Here is where it gets frustrating for the family. The DNA on those gloves was traced to a local restaurant worker who investigators said was “not part of this investigation.” A gray Range Rover spotted in the parking lot of a nearby Culver’s was seized and towed. One person removed from the home was brought in for questioning and let go. Multiple ransom notes demanded payment in cryptocurrency, with two deadlines that passed by February 9. None of it has led to a named suspect.
Why the case has dragged on for months
The short version: the case lives and dies on lab work, and lab work is slow. The FBI is analyzing mixed DNA recovered from inside Nancy’s home, including a hair sample. Experts say the DNA likely came from several people, and pulling it apart and running it against databases can take months. Even then, there is no promise the suspect’s DNA is in any system at all.
Sheriff Nanos has admitted some details are being held back on purpose. “We want to make sure that DNA doesn’t just identify a suspect. It also exonerates those who are innocent,” he said on June 1. Back in May, he told People that investigators felt they were “getting closer,” saying his DNA labs were working with detectives every day. Even so, the department has acknowledged there have been no major breakthroughs in recent weeks. Thousands of hours and tens of thousands of tips later, no one has been publicly identified or charged.
The FBI friction and the federal spotlight
This case has pulled in attention from the very top. President Donald Trump called Savannah on February 4 and offered more federal resources. The White House posted information about Nancy on its social media accounts. The investigation has involved the sheriff’s department, the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and search-and-rescue teams.
There has also been public tension between agencies. FBI Director Kash Patel has claimed Arizona authorities slowed down the FBI’s involvement early on, alleging the sheriff’s office sidelined the bureau for several days when it first offered help. That kind of finger-pointing rarely happens in public, and it gives you a sense of how high the stakes have climbed.
The reward and a daughter back on TV
The family first offered a $1 million reward on February 24 for information leading to her recovery. That figure has since grown, with reporting putting the combined reward at $1.2 million. Savannah Guthrie stepped away from her broadcasting duties to join the search, including skipping coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
She returned to the Today show in early April. “It’s really hard to come back. I’ve been trying so hard to hold it together,” she told Jenna Bush Hager. Her mother, Nancy Ellen Long, was born January 27, 1942, in Fort Wright, Kentucky, and has lived in the Tucson area for more than five decades. She was married to Charles Guthrie until his death in 1988, and has three children: Camron, Annie, and Savannah.
What to do if you know something
No proof of life has ever been given by whoever took her. Whether Nancy is alive or not simply is not known right now. The volunteers in Mexico say they will keep working the Mariposa area, and Arizona investigators say they will chase any credible lead that comes in. For now, those are two separate efforts circling the same painful question.
Anyone with information about the Guthrie case can call 1-800-CALL-FBI, 520-351-4900, or 88-CRIME. If a single phone call from an anonymous man could send dozens of volunteers digging through the desert, the right tip from the right person could finally break this case open.