A leading forensic scientist believes 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, was likely targeted by someone in her own community, a local worker who learned of the family's connection to a famous daughter and assumed they were wealthy.

Barbara Butcher, a longtime medicolegal death investigator who spent decades with one of the country's largest medical examiner's offices, shared her assessment with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of CrimeCon Las Vegas over the weekend. Her remarks paint a grim picture of what may have happened to the elderly woman, who is believed to have been taken from her Tucson, Arizona, home in the early hours of February 1 and has not been seen since.

More than four months later, no arrests have been made. No suspect has been publicly identified. And no credible ransom demand has materialized, a silence that Butcher finds deeply troubling.

A handyman, a service worker, someone who 'found out'

Butcher, who hosts Oxygen's "The Death Investigator," told Fox News Digital she was initially shocked that anyone would abduct a woman of Nancy Guthrie's age. But she quickly arrived at a working theory rooted in opportunity and proximity.

"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.'"

That assessment points toward a crime driven not by sophistication but by assumption, someone close enough to the household to learn who lived there, yet reckless enough to act on a guess about the family's finances.

Butcher did not mince words about the person she believes is responsible.

"So this person is not well."

No valid ransom, and a devastating possibility

What happened after the apparent abduction may be worse than the crime itself. Ransom demands were sent to TMZ in February, and Savannah Guthrie's family offered to meet them. But Butcher noted the absence of any valid follow-through, no credible communication, no proof of life, no negotiation that led anywhere.

That void led Butcher to a conclusion she called "horrifying."

"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."

She continued:

"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."

An 84-year-old woman seized from her home in the middle of the night faces enormous physical risk even without violence. Shock, cardiac arrest, an underlying condition, any of these could prove fatal in minutes. And if the abductor's plan depended on a ransom that never came together, Butcher's theory suggests the crime collapsed almost immediately, leaving the perpetrator with no leverage and every reason to conceal what happened.

The investigation so far

Law enforcement moved quickly after Nancy Guthrie's disappearance. FBI agents canvassed homes near her Tucson residence on Friday, February 6, just days after she was believed taken. Aerial drone footage captured by the Fox Flight Team showed her home and grounds as early as February 3.

By February 23, Pima County deputies were examining a flyer taped to the mailbox outside the Guthrie home, a sign the case had shifted into a public-awareness phase, with investigators seeking help from the community.

The family has urged 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. A combined reward of more than $1.2 million has been posted for information that breaks the case.

That reward figure alone signals the family's desperation, and the scale of the investigative dead end. More than a million dollars on the table, and still no public breakthrough.

What remains unanswered

Critical questions hang over the case. What evidence led investigators to conclude Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home rather than leaving voluntarily? What did the ransom demands sent to TMZ actually say, and why were they deemed not credible? Has any physical evidence been recovered from the home or surrounding area?

None of these answers have surfaced publicly. The FBI has not identified a suspect. No charges have been filed. Nancy Guthrie's condition and whereabouts remain unknown.

Butcher's theory, that a local worker with some knowledge of the household acted impulsively on a false assumption of wealth, fits a pattern familiar to veteran investigators. Crimes of opportunity committed by people without a real plan tend to go wrong fast. And when they go wrong with an elderly victim, the consequences can be irreversible before anyone even knows a crime has occurred.

A family left waiting

Savannah Guthrie has not spoken publicly in detail about her mother's case, but the family's willingness to meet ransom demands, and the massive reward now offered, speak for themselves. This is a family that has done everything within its power to bring Nancy Guthrie home.

The silence from the other side remains deafening. No credible contact. No proof of life. No resolution.

Butcher's assessment is speculative, as she acknowledged. But it is informed speculation from someone who has spent a career examining how crimes end, and how victims are lost. Her read on this case is bleak.

When a $1.2 million reward can't shake loose a single credible lead, the facts are already telling a story that no family wants to hear.