Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing since 1 February, when authorities believe she was abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson, Arizona. Now, more than five weeks into the investigation, experts are raising urgent questions not only about who took her, but about whether she could have physically survived the ordeal. A sleep specialist has warned that the circumstances of that early morning disappearance may have placed Guthrie in immediate, life-threatening danger from the very first moment she was disturbed.
Speaking on the 'Crime Stories' podcast on 7 March, sleep specialist Pat Byrne said one particular scenario left him immediately concerned. Byrne focused on the human brain's response when someone is violently roused from sleep in the middle of the night—and what that means for an elderly woman with a known heart condition.
