Father of Kidnapped California Girl Polly Klaas Reveals 'Triggering' Similarities to Nancy Guthrie Investigation

The father of a girl abducted from a slumber party and later found dead in a shallow grave two months later said the search for Nancy Guthrie has brought back terrible memories.

"It's triggering," Marc Klaas, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday, February 12. "It's triggering because there are so many similarities between what happened in our case and what's happening here."

Klaas' 12-year-old daughter, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped during a sleepover with two friends at her mother's house in Petaluma, Calif., on October 1, 1993.

Marc noted that, like in the case of Savannah Guthrie's missing mom, the hunt for Polly involved an "overwhelming" joint effort by local law enforcement and the FBI.

"The law enforcement presence in both of these cases were overwhelming. And the fact that we're going days on end without any new information, without new suspects," Marc said.

"What it does to you internally is it breaks you down," he explained. "It takes you from a rational human being to somebody that is completely overwhelmed by fear and by anger."

The child safety and victims' rights advocate went on to say that it become harder to cope as time goes by without answers, but that "you still have to hold on to [hope]."

"You have to hold on to it until the end, whatever the end happens to be," Marc declared.

Polly's terrifying kidnapping sparked a massive search where investigators, neighbors, and even actress Winona Ryder — a Petaluma native who was at the height of her career at the time — chipped in to help.

The Edward Scissorhands star raised awareness in interviews and offered a $200,000 reward for information related to Polly's abduction.

"We needed the media to keep the pressure on the cops so the cops would not step away from the case," Marc said in a 2023 episode of 20/20.

It wasn't until nearly two months later that investigators secured a lead.

A Santa Rosa woman named Dana Jaffe had notified police that a car was stuck in a ditch on her secluded property in the hours after Polly was taken.

She told authorities that the driver was suspicious, describing him as "disheveled" and "panic-stricken," adding that she "smelled fear."

But police let him go without checking for any criminal history, as it wasn't standard practice at the time, and officers were unaware of Polly's kidnapping, as it wasn't broadcast on their radio channels.

Two months later, though, Dana called police again after discovering a sweatshirt, girls' clothing, and other dubious items during a hike on her property.

"I thought this is maybe a crime scene," she told 20/20, explaining she informed cops about the stranger from October, and they found he had served time in prison for a previous kidnapping.

Eventually, Richard Allen Davis was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996. He was sentenced to death and is currently on death row at the San Quentin State Prison outside of San Francisco.

Nancy has been missing for two weeks now, after disappearing from her Tucson, Ariz. home on February 1.

Authorities who arrived on the scene found blood spatter and announced they believed she had been taken against her will.

On Tuesday, February 10, the FBI released photos of a masked suspect tampering with the 84-year-old's doorbell camera in the early morning hours of that Sunday.

Per a new report, the FBI alleges they've been blocked from accessing critical evidence tied to the case. However, Sheriff Chris Nanos reportedly pushed back on the claims.