US television presenter Savannah Guthrie is returning to NBC’s Today show on Monday for the first time since her mother’s disappearance more than two months ago.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen at her Arizona home on 31 January and was reported missing the following day.
Officials say her blood was found on the front porch. Purported ransom notes were sent to news outlets, but deadlines for paying have passed.
Authorities believe she was kidnapped or abducted. During the investigation, the FBI released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.
Nancy Guthrie and her daughter Savannah. Pic: Savannah Guthrie/Instagram
Today co-anchor Ms Guthrie, 54, has acknowledged she’s a changed person since her mother’s disappearance and that it’s difficult to press ahead without knowing what happened to her.
Despite a search that involved thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the mother-of-three since she went missing.
In a video message released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Ms Guthrie said she felt “moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment”.
But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated “if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death”.
“Perhaps this is too dark a message to share on Easter morning, but I have long believed that we miss out on fully celebrating resurrection if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain and, yes, death,” she said.
“It is the darkness that makes this morning’s light so magnificent, so blindingly beautiful.”
In her closing message she said: “I see a bright vision of the day when heaven and Earth pass away because they are one, on Earth as it is in heaven.
“When we celebrate today, this is what we celebrate, and I celebrate, too. I still believe. And so I say with conviction, ‘Happy Easter.'”
Pic: NBC/Today/Reuters
Announcing her return to NBC’s flagship morning show, Ms Guthrie said she was unsure whether she’ll feel like she still belongs.
“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said just over a week ago on Today in her first interview since her mother’s disappearance.
“I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”
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Ms Guthrie, one of US morning television’s most recognisable faces, has been a co-anchor on Today since 2012.
There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return to the show.
“I want to smile, and when I do it will be real,” she told broadcaster Hoda Kotb, who returned to Today to fill in for Guthrie while she concentrated on the search.
“Being there is joyful, and when it’s not I’ll say so.”
Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on Today over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on set.
When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson last year for a segment recorded for the show, the pair attended one of their favourite restaurants and chatted about their love of Arizona.
The Guthrie family has offered a $1m reward for information leading to the return of their mother.
The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.
Early on, some media outlets reported receiving ransom messages linked to the case.
Ms Guthrie said she and her siblings responded to two they believed to be real and offered to pay.
Ms Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but that possibility was “too much to bear”.
