Nancy Guthrie's disappearance from her home on 1 February has entered its fourth week, and a former special deputy US marshal now believes it is unlikely the 84‑year‑old mother ofTodayshow host Savannah Guthrie is still alive.
Speaking about the case on Ashleigh Banfield's programmeDrop Dead Seriouson Tuesday 17 February, security expert Spencer Coursen said a kidnapping victim's 'life expectancy drops about 90 per cent' once they are moved to a second location.
That blunt assessment has added a new layer of dread to an already agonising search. The Guthrie family, who have offered a reward of up to $1 million (£740,070) for information leading to Nancy's recovery, are clinging to the slimmest hope while being forced to confront what such statistics imply.
The case has become a grim lesson in how quickly the odds turn against victims of abduction, and why security professionals insist that the first minutes of an attempted kidnapping can decide everything that follows.
Coursen, who served as a special deputy US marshal and now works in security and risk management, did not speak about Nancy Guthrie's case in detail. Instead, he used the platform to explain the broader mechanics of abduction and why investigators fear the phrase 'second location'.
'If an abduction is attempted at the first location, you have a 90 per cent survival rate,' he told Banfield. 'Once you get moved to a second location, that survival rate drops to 10 per cent because now you have given the abductors control, you have given them time, and you have given them options.'
The numbers are stark, and Coursen did not present a specific study on air to back them. Still, his message, repeated in various forms by law‑enforcement trainers and security advisers, is simple enough: the moment a victim is forced into a vehicle or taken away from public view, the balance of power shifts decisively to the attacker.
Nancy is believed to have been taken from her home in the middle of the night, according to earlier reports about the investigation. That alone places her in the most dangerous category of cases, where there are no witnesses on the street, no CCTV from a busy shopfront and no bystander able to call police within seconds. In such situations, investigators often find themselves reconstructing events from silence.
Coursen's advice onDrop Dead Seriouswas not aimed solely at those following the Guthrie investigation. It was, rather chillingly, directed at anyone who has ever wondered what they would do if someone tried to bundle them into a car.
'Because of the "grim statistic", he said, a person who thinks they are about to be abducted should 'fight like your life depends on it'.
Source: International Business Times UK
