Savannah Guthrie's family 'cleared as suspects' in case of missing mum

The Guthrie family - including all the siblings and spouses - have been officially cleared as suspects in the ongoing Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos confirmed the news on Monday in a statement.

"To be clear, the Guthrie family - to include all siblings and spouses - has been cleared as possible suspects. The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case."

The family had never been officially identified as suspects by authorities.

Nanos - who has been heading up the investigation, now in its third week - also hit back at "cruel" speculation that family members could have been involved in the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie's 84-year-old mother.

"The Guthrie family are victims plain and simple. Please, I'm begging you, the media, to honour your profession and report with some sense of compassion and professionalism," Nanos urged.

News broke on 1 February that Nancy had been reported missing by a family member who called 911. She had been visiting her daughter, Annie, six kilometres away, before she was driven back home by her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni. The FBI has searched Annie and Cioni's house multiple times as part of their inquiries.

Nancy shared daughters Annie and Savannah, and son Camron, with her late husband, Charles Guthrie, who died in 1988 after a heart attack.

Following Nancy's disappearance, Nanos shared that authorities were investigating the motive behind her abduction, and insisted that he believes she was kidnapped, rather than the victim of a burglary gone wrong.

"This is somebody who's disappeared from the face of the earth, and now we have a camera that says here's the person who did this," he told the Daily Mail on Monday, referring to footage retrieved from Nancy's doorbell camera.