Reason revealed for Savannah Guthrie’s sudden midweek Today absence

Savannah Guthrie was noticeably absent at the start of Today on June 17, with Craig Melvin sitting alongside another familiar face. 

The news anchor was joined by Sheinelle Jones, and explained that Savannah was away on an assignment. 

No more information was given regarding the assignment, although the anchors are often away filming upcoming segments and features on location. 

In fact, just the day before, Craig himself was missing from the show – also on an assignment, and Savannah was instead joined by Sunday Today host Willie Geist. 

Savannah has had an incredibly difficult year, but has proved just how strong and resilient she is. 

The NBC’s star Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than four months, and is believed to have been taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, against her will in the early hours of February 1. 

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Savannah took a leave of absence following Nancy’s disappearance to be with her family, but returned to Today on April 6. 

Recently, the star opened up about why she returned to work while her mother was still missing during an emotional chat with her friend and co-host, Jenna Bush Hager. 

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On June 8, Savannah joined Jenna on the Fourth Hour, where she explained: “I’m happy to be back. It’s two hours of my day. I am thinking about it, but it’s something to do and it brings me a lot of joy to be with everybody. But it’s not easy.” 

The star added: “I know people maybe wonder what’s going on, how is she able to do that job, how is she not thinking about it, did she forget? No, never, never.” 

Jenna echoed her sentiment: “And neither have we. We have your back and be with you forever with this. We will never forget.” Savannah then urged viewers: “We still need everybody’s prayers. For someone to call with what they know.” 

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Nancy’s disappearance was first raised after the 84-year-old was noticeably absent at her usual church service, which she called into remotely each week. 

Despite many tips and extensive searches, the investigation into Nancy’s disappearance has yielded no definitive leads or suspects. 

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Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos spoke with People about the slow pace of the investigation, which has sparked ire online. “Right now, I think our focus is on the tips, the leads and the evidence we have in front of us,” he told the outlet. 

“Digitally – the camera footage as well as biological, the DNA and those types of things.” “There’s thousands and thousands of videos out there from intersections and Ring cameras that we have to catalog,” he continued. “I know we have DNA that is unknown who the contributor or depositor is, but I think they’re getting closer to finding out who that was.” He added that they continued to put their all into finding Nancy. 

“When the labs tell us, ‘Hey, there’s nothing else we can do,’ well, then maybe we’ve got a problem…we’ve got a cold case…but right now, the labs aren’t telling us that,” he said. “My team, I’ve said all along, they’re gonna solve this. I fully 100% believe that.”