When Lynette Pino saw the February news coverage surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, she made a conscious choice not to let it overwhelm her emotions.
Pino shares a heartbreaking connection with the family of NBC “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie: her own child has been missing for nearly two decades. Her son Darian Nevayaktewa disappeared in 2008, just before starting a new school year, while visiting his father in Arizona.
“I could see in their faces that they want answers,” said the 58-year-old from Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico. “What’s the next step? What can we do? It’s how I feel. There are no answers. I just pray for them and the other people who are missing.”
“Why,” she questioned, “would someone take an elderly lady?”
Both Pino and the Guthrie family are dealing with what mental health professionals term ambiguous loss. This occurs when a family member vanishes, creating an agonizing uncertainty that may never be resolved. The category encompasses kidnappings, runaways, certain catastrophic events, and warfare. It also includes situations where dementia transforms familiar relatives into strangers.
“They’re frozen in their grief. They have a real sense of helplessness,” explained Tai Mendenhall, a medical family therapist at the University of Minnesota who leads a mental health disaster response team. “There’s no clear resolution from it. We know from research that ambiguous loss is the most psychologically painful kind of loss because of that.”
Pauline Boss pioneered research in this area and coined the terminology. During the 1970s, she conducted interviews with California women whose spouses had gone missing during the Vietnam conflict. Both Boss and Mendenhall provided support to families following the September 11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center.
Nancy Guthrie, age 84, disappeared from her Tucson-area residence on February 1st while living independently. According to Savannah Guthrie, her mother was “taken in the dark of night from her bed.” Federal investigators later released surveillance footage from outside the home showing an unidentified masked individual. Blood evidence was discovered on the front porch, but authorities have not solved the case.
The unusual nature of the crime and Savannah Guthrie’s prominence as a television host have generated significant media attention. Guthrie has created multiple video appeals, often alongside her siblings Annie and Camron, pleading for her mother’s safe return and recently announcing a $1 million reward for helpful information.
“As my sister says, ‘We are blowing on the embers of hope,’” Guthrie stated on February 24th, with visibly emotional eyes.
Guthrie, Annie, and brother-in-law Tommaso Cioni visited a memorial site at the family home recently, placing flowers and reading handwritten messages of support while embracing each other. Guthrie also made an emotional return to her NBC workplace in New York on Thursday.
Throughout this ordeal, she has referenced her Christian beliefs, previously asking followers on Instagram to “raise your prayers with us” and recently acknowledging that Nancy Guthrie may already be in heaven “dancing with our daddy.” Mental health experts note that faith can be crucial for managing ambiguous loss.
“When people turn toward their faith, that is where they find solace,” Mendenhall observed. “Oftentimes the power of faith comes from the communities that inhabit it. Sometimes the best treatment for ambiguous loss is a community group, people who have had this shared experience.”
Pino relies on prayer regularly while dealing with her son’s disappearance. Nevayaktewa was 19 years old when he went missing in June 2008. His case represents one of many unresolved violent crimes affecting Native American communities. Federal authorities announced last year they were deploying additional agents, analysts, and support staff to ten states to address this issue.
“He wanted to go see his dad on the Hopi reservation in Arizona,” Pino recalled about her son. “I just remember that day hugging him, telling him he only needed a half-semester to graduate from high school. He wasn’t there long, maybe a week, before he disappeared. Someone took him somewhere — I don’t know. Hard to say.”
Savannah Guthrie announced her family’s decision to donate $500,000 to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, recognizing “millions of families that have suffered” with similar uncertainty.
During a trip to Arizona last summer near the anniversary of her son’s disappearance, Pino said she offered prayers and lit candles for Nevayaktewa.
“Do not give up hope,” Pino advised for the Guthries. “Don’t let law enforcement put it aside.”
