Ransom notes sent to various media outlets following Nancy Guthrie’s suspected abduction in February have been determined to be fake by the FBI, according to a new report.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, June 30, that authorities found two notes sent in February, one of which included a demand for money, and a more recent note claiming to have information on the suspected kidnappers to be inauthentic, citing an FBI official.
“None of the ransom notes are believed to be genuine,” the FBI official told the news agency.
According to Reuters, a second law enforcement official familiar with the case corroborated the FBI’s assessment.
Us Weekly has reached out to the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona for comment.
Angelina Carrillo of the Pima County police force told Reuters, “We don’t have any updates, other than this is still an active investigation.”
Nancy, 84, the mother of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie, was last seen by her eldest daughter, Annie Guthrie, and her son-in-law on the evening of January 31 when she joined the couple for a family meal. She is believed to have been abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills, outside of Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1.
TMZ and several local Arizona news outlets received a ransom note demanding millions of dollars in the days following Nancy’s disappearance. A second note sent days later suggested that Nancy had died but contained no demand for money.
The FBI determined that the first two notes were connected but ultimately ruled out their authenticity, per Reuters. The bureau attempted to deposit a small amount of money in the cryptocurrency account mentioned in the first note, but it remained unclaimed.
Reuters reported that “it was on that basis and by other unspecified means” that the FBI reached its conclusion that the notes were sent by someone unlikely to be connected with the case.
The FBI also dismissed a third note that TMZ reported receiving last week from someone claiming to know the identities of the suspected kidnappers. TMZ reported on June 26 that the anonymous sender claimed to also have video footage of the “main guy” and Nancy on the day she allegedly died. According to Reuters, the FBI official “did not reveal how investigators ruled out the third note as fake.”
As Us reported in February, the first note gave two deadlines for money to be deposited into a Bitcoin account — one on February 5 and another on February 9 — in exchange for Nancy’s return.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin told CNN in February that upon reading the note, “It felt like somebody means business. When you read it, it’s very detailed.”
Levin, 75, said the note described Nancy as “OK, but scared” that she was “aware of the letter and the demands” made in it.
A second note received by news outlets later in February suggested that Nancy was dead, NBC News reported on June 22. According to the outlet, that note made no request for payment in exchange for Nancy’s body, nor did it offer an apology.
“In the [second] note it says she’s ‘buried in nature’ and that’s what I read,” Briana Whitney, a former Arizona’s Family TV reporter, told Us in June.
Whitney said it was “interesting they used that specific phrasing and also referred to the fact that she [Nancy] ‘perished’ shortly after she was taken.”
Read the full article here
