Elizabeth Smart’s dad, Ed Smart, is sharing his thoughts on the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mom, Nancy Guthrie.
Ed, 70, reflected on Elizabeth’s 2002 abduction while explaining the importance of Nancy’s family sharing public pleas for her safe return home during an interview on Fox & Friends on Thursday, February 5.
“What are the chances that the mom is seeing this?” a reporter asked Ed, referring to the nationwide search for Nancy, 84, who was reported missing on Sunday, February 1.
“Well, what happened in our case is Elizabeth heard about [the efforts to find her] from [her abductor] Brian David Mitchell,” Ed explained. “He would come back and say, ‘The whole country is looking for you, and your family, but nobody knows because I’ve got you.’ And so her captors did make her aware that there was a search, that we were out there calling for her.”
Elizabeth, now 38, was 14 years old when she was kidnapped from her home in Utah by Mitchell, 70, and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was held captive for nine months before being found alive.
According to Ed, families of abducted individuals often release public statements to appeal to captors and let their loved ones know they are being searched for. Nancy’s children, Savannah, 54, Annie, 56, and Camron, 61, did just that in a video statement on Wednesday, February 4.
“Nancy is our mother, we are her children. She is our beacon,” Annie said in the video. “She holds fast to joy and all of life’s circumstances. She chooses joy day after day despite having already passed through great trials of pain and grief. We are always going to be merely human. Just normal human people who need our mom. Mama, if you’re listening we need you to come home. We miss you.”
Addressing an alleged ransom note sent to TMZ and local news outlets earlier this week, Savannah added, “We too have heard the reports about a ransom letter in the media. As a family, we are doing everything that we can. We are ready to talk. However, we live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her. We want to hear from you and we are ready to listen. Please, reach out to us.”
Ed said that talking to abductors directly is “crucially important.”
“That they know that they’re trying to comply with everything that’s being said, that they want to resolve this and bring their mother home,” he added.
Additionally, Ed said that even if Nancy can’t see or hear the messages from her children directly, it is still important that she knows there is a search underway.
“It’s hard to know whether Nancy can hear or not, but it’s important to make that effort,” he continued. “Bringing her hope in a very difficult time and keeping her hopes up that this is going to be resolved, and she’ll be back with her family, nothing could be more important.”
Nancy was last seen in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday, January 31. She was reported missing by her family the following day after a friend from church noticed that Nancy didn’t attend that morning’s service. When Nancy’s family checked up on her home, they realized she was gone.
Police believe that Nancy was abducted due to mobility issues making her unable to leave on her own, as well as signs of “danger” at her home.
“It does have to do with what was described to us about the scene,” Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos exclusively told Us Weekly. “I’ve been doing this for 50 years. When something doesn’t sit well, it doesn’t sit well. Something unusual at that house occurred that made us go, ‘Wow … something’s wrong here. Something doesn’t fit.’”
Police have not yet identified a motive for a possible kidnapping or a suspect in the case.
