Savannah Guthrie Opens Up to Hoda Kotb About Mother's Disappearance

Someone needs to do the right thing. We are in agony. It is unbearable."

Those words came Tuesday, when Savannah Guthrie sat down with Hoda Kotb for her first interview since her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, was abducted from her Catalina Foothills home near Tucson, Arizona. A preview excerpt aired on Today on March 25, with the full conversation set to run in two parts on Thursday, March 26, and Friday, March 27.

In the clip aired Wednesday, Guthrie told Kotb: "I wake up every night in the middle of the night, every night. And in the darkness, I imagine her terror, and it is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought, and I will not hide my face. But she needs to come home now."

Nancy Guthrie, 84, disappeared the night of January 31 after returning home from dinner with family and was reported missing February 1 after she failed to show up for church. Evidence recovered at the residence indicated that Nancy had been taken against her will, and Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos stated that he believed she had been abducted. Bloodstains found at the scene were confirmed to be Nancy's.

Tuesday marked Day 52 in the search for Nancy Guthrie, as the case entered its eighth week. On February 10, the FBI released still images and video from a doorbell camera showing an armed, masked individual carrying a backpack on Nancy's property at the time of her disappearance. The FBI described the suspect as male, between 5 feet 9 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, with an average build, and wearing a black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack 25-liter backpack in the doorbell camera images. Investigators have not identified any suspects in the abduction.

The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for Nancy's recovery, while the FBI has separately offered $50,000 for information leading to her recovery or to the arrest of anyone involved.

Describing Savannah ahead of the interview's full broadcast, Kotb told her Today colleagues: "There is a desperation and also a steeliness about Savannah. I mean, she's hoping that somebody, whoever this person is, will see something and say something." Kotb said the interview covers the investigation, Guthrie's faith, and how she is getting through the ordeal.

Kotb, a former Today co-anchor who remains under contract to NBC News, is an insider familiar with Guthrie and the morning-show audience, and yet has some degree of removal from the proceedings, no longer being a full-time staffer at the program. Kotb has been at the anchor desk on Today alongside Craig Melvin throughout Savannah's absence. Today has also relied on fill-ins from other anchors, including Sheinelle Jones and Laura Jarrett.

Savannah's most recent on-air appearance before the crisis came on January 30, two days before Nancy was reported missing to police. She returned to New York City on March 6 to make an emotional visit to the Today studio at Rockefeller Center to express gratitude to her colleagues, telling the staff: "I wanted you to know that I'm still standing, and I still have hope, and I'm still me. And I don't know what version of me that will be, but it will be." She added: "I'm holding onto my faith. I still believe."

She confirmed that day that she would return to work at some point, saying: "I don't know how to come back, but I don't know how not to." Guthrie is expected to return to Today, but no date has been set.

The Guthrie family, in a statement issued this past weekend, said: "We miss our mom with every breath, and we cannot be at peace until she is home." As of March 22, Nancy Guthrie had not been located and the investigation remained ongoing.