A longtime forensic investigator told Fox News Digital she believes Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, was targeted by someone in her own community, a handyman, a service worker, someone who learned whose mother lived in that Tucson home and made a calculation.

Barbara Butcher, a leading medicolegal death investigator who spent decades with one of the country's largest medical examiner's offices, shared her assessment on the sidelines of CrimeCon Las Vegas over the weekend. Her theory is grim, specific, and grounded in the kind of pattern recognition that comes from years of examining how crimes unfold against vulnerable people.

Nancy Guthrie is believed to have been taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1. Nearly a month later, her whereabouts remain unknown. No arrest has been announced. A combined reward of more than $1.2 million has been posted for information that breaks the case, and still, nothing.

A theory built on silence

What struck Butcher most was the absence of a credible ransom demand. Ransom demands were sent to TMZ in February, and Savannah Guthrie's family offered to meet them. But Butcher told Fox News Digital the demands apparently lacked credibility, and that silence, in her experience, points somewhere dark.

"I find it flabbergasting that anyone would take a woman her age, but what I think is probably the case is that someone in the area, maybe a handyman, maybe a service person, had known, had found out that Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of Savannah Guthrie and said, 'Oh, she must be rich.'"

Butcher added bluntly: "So this person is not well."

The investigator's second thought was worse. Without a valid ransom demand or any meaningful information coming forward, Butcher said she fears Nancy Guthrie may have died shortly after the alleged abduction, from shock, fright, or an underlying medical condition.

"My second thought was that after time, when there was no valid ransom demand or any information forthcoming that it's probably likely that Mrs. Guthrie died of shock, fright, heart disease, whatever it was, very soon after being taken from her home."

And then the part no family should have to hear:

"And that's just horrifying to me...and so now this kidnapper had nothing and probably, unfortunately, took her body into the desert and buried her there."

What law enforcement has done, and what remains unknown

The investigation has been active. FBI agents canvassed homes near Nancy Guthrie's residence in Tucson on Friday, February 6. Aerial drone footage captured the home and surrounding grounds as early as February 3. On February 23, Pima County deputies examined a flyer taped to the mailbox outside Guthrie's home, though the contents of that flyer have not been publicly described.

No suspect has been publicly identified, charged, or ruled out.

The family continues to urge anyone with information to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Anonymous tips can also be sent to Tucson's Crime Stoppers affiliate, 88-Crime, at 1-520-882-7463.

The vulnerability no one talks about

Butcher's theory raises a question that extends well beyond one case. An 84-year-old woman, living in her own home, is believed to have been taken in the early morning hours by someone who may have had prior access to the property or knowledge of the household. If that theory holds, it means the threat came not from a stranger but from the kind of person a homeowner might have trusted, or at least tolerated, as part of daily life in a residential community.

This is the reality for millions of older Americans living alone or with limited support. They rely on service workers, delivery drivers, landscapers, and repair crews. Most of those workers are honest. But when one is not, the consequences fall on the person least able to defend herself.

Butcher's credentials give her assessment weight. She hosts Oxygen's "The Death Investigator" and has built a career on reading the physical and circumstantial evidence that surrounds violent crime. She is not law enforcement on this case. She has no inside knowledge of the FBI's investigation. But her reading of the available facts, the age of the victim, the apparent lack of a credible ransom, the silence, follows a logic that experienced investigators will recognize.

More than $1.2 million in reward money, and still no answers

The reward figure alone tells you how desperate the search has become. More than $1.2 million has been offered for information that leads to a resolution. That kind of money should shake something loose. The fact that it hasn't suggests either deep fear among potential witnesses or a perpetrator who acted alone and left little trace.

The ransom demands sent to TMZ add another layer of uncertainty. Who sent them? Were they from the actual abductor or from an opportunist trying to exploit a high-profile disappearance? The Guthrie family's willingness to meet the demands, and the apparent failure of those demands to produce results, suggests the latter.

Meanwhile, Nancy Guthrie's home in Tucson sits as a crime scene and a symbol. FBI agents walked the neighborhood. Deputies inspected the mailbox. Drones flew overhead. And somewhere, an 84-year-old woman's fate remains unknown.

A case that demands accountability

There is no political angle to a missing grandmother. But there is a governance angle. Communities across the country are aging. Older residents living independently deserve to feel safe in their own homes. When they don't, when someone can allegedly be taken from her house in the pre-dawn hours and vanish without a trace for weeks, it raises hard questions about the security infrastructure that is supposed to protect the most vulnerable.

Butcher's theory, if correct, also underscores a cultural problem. Celebrity culture makes private information public. A local worker who learns that the quiet older woman on the block is the mother of a national television personality can, with a few internet searches, build a profile of perceived wealth. That profile becomes a motive. And the victim pays the price for her daughter's success.

The FBI and Pima County authorities have not publicly confirmed the abduction theory, describing Guthrie only as missing and believed to have been taken. No official statement in the available reporting names a suspect or confirms a mechanism. The investigation remains open, and the family's plea for tips remains urgent.

More than $1.2 million says someone, somewhere, knows something. The question is whether that knowledge will surface before the desert keeps its secrets permanently.

An 84-year-old woman deserves to be found. Her family deserves answers. And the person responsible, whoever and wherever they are, deserves to face the full weight of the law.