Detective Brian Martin’s theory is brutally simple: whoever took 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie thought she was an easy payday. They allegedly stormed her Tucson home in the dark, ignoring the blood at the door and the reality of her heart problems, high blood pressure and pacemaker. When her fragile body could no longer withstand the ordeal, the plan, he believes, shifted from ransom to disposal. Dead, she was no longer “of value” to them.

For Savannah Guthrie, the “Today” show co-anchor who has begged for answers, that possibility is almost unthinkable — yet it fits the silence that has followed. Sixty-seven days, no calls, no credible ransom demand, no trace. Investigators still insist this is a kidnapping, but Martin’s experience tells him the most likely clue to what happened next is not in a phone record or a note. It’s wherever they chose to leave her, hoping she would never be found.