The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie an 84-year-old woman from Tucson, Arizona, has taken a grim turn with the revelation of a second ransom note. This note, received by authorities, claimed that Guthrie had died shortly after her abduction. The note did not include any apology or demand for payment for the return of her body.
The first ransom note was received by TMZ and KOLD-TV a local Tucson station, and demanded millions in bitcoin for Guthrie’s release. The second note, received on February 6, was similar in language and style but did not make any demands. Investigators believe the same person or group sent both notes, likely from the same computer IP address.
Emotional Plea from the Guthrie Family
In response to the ransom notes, Savannah Guthrie, Nancy’s daughter and a co-anchor on NBC’s Today show, released a video with her siblings offering to pay for the return of their mother’s remains. “We received your message, and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie said in the video. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
The family’s plea came after Guthrie had been missing for about six days. Authorities believe she was taken against her will, citing blood marks found on the porch of her home that matched her DNA and a security camera that had been unplugged.
Investigation and Forensic Evidence
Federal investigators have collected DNA from someone other than Nancy Guthrie on her property. The FBI obtained a sample from a glove found near her home that appears to match a pair worn by the masked and armed individual spotted on doorbell camera footage. The analysis was awaiting “quality control and official confirmation” before results were to be compared against known DNA profiles in a national database.
In an interview with Today that aired at the end of March, Savannah Guthrie expressed her belief that the two notes they responded to were real. “There are a lot of different notes, I think that came. And I think most of them, it’s my understanding, are not real,” she said. “But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those were real.”
The Search for Nancy Guthrie
Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the evening of January 31 at her home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood north of Tucson. The FBI released images showing an armed person at her front door tampering with the camera prior to her disappearance, but the suspect has not been identified.
A reward totaling more than $1.2 million has been offered for information leading to her recovery. Despite multiple leads and people in custody, no arrests have been made. In April, an anonymous tip to a nonprofit about a Mexican grave concerning Nancy Guthrie sparked three searches near Nogales.
Anyone with information about Guthrie’s kidnapping is asked to call the tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). The investigation remains active and ongoing, with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI working closely together to follow up on leads and pursue the facts surrounding this case.
