Savannah Guthrie may never know what happened to her loved one. In the US, she's not alone

"We still believe in a miracle, Guthrie said in a video last week announcing a $1m reward for her mother's return in an enduring mystery that has gripped the US for four weeks. We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone."

"The increased reward, says former FBI profiler Bryanna Fox, is a strategic move in missing persons cases when the collection of physical evidence from a crime scene cannot be taken further, or the chain of evidence has been broken in terms of what could be plausibly introduced in court."

"They're hoping that where one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand dollars was not enough, one million could be enough to convince someone who is in this to come forward, said Fox, now a criminologist at the University of South Florida. The theory behind that also relies on the idea that while a crime may initially have been committed by one person, more people become involved or aware of it later."

Savannah Guthrie is resuming her role as anchor of NBC's Today show while confronting the ongoing disappearance of her 84-year-old mother, Nancy, who vanished from her Tucson, Arizona home. After four weeks without resolution, Guthrie announced a $1 million reward for information leading to her mother's return, while acknowledging the possibility that her mother may be deceased. The FBI relocated its command center from Tucson to Phoenix and released the family home. DNA samples and glove analysis from the scene produced no significant leads. Former FBI profiler Bryanna Fox explains that increased rewards serve as strategic tools when physical evidence collection reaches its limits, potentially motivating witnesses to come forward. The approach recognizes that multiple people often possess knowledge of crimes.

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