California man Derrick Callella has been arrested for sending what authorities believe to be a fake ransom demand in the suspected Tucson, Arizona, kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie. The Pima County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona and FBI are still investigating a separate ransom demand that was received two days before Callella’s.
Callella, born in 1983, is charged with two federal crimes. The first is for transmitting an interstate “demand for ransom … for the release of any kidnapped person.” The second is for using a telephone to send an interstate text message and make an interstate call “without disclosing his identity,” and “with intent to abuse, threaten or harass any specific person.”
On Feb. 2, 2026, KOLD, the CBS affiliate in Tucson, received a ransom demand via its online tip portal. The demand included a “Bitcoin wallet address to receive the ransom payment.” This demand has “not been linked” to Callella’s demand. The Bitcoin detail from the Feb. 2 demand was reported by the media.
Two days later, Nancy Guthrie’s daughter (Savannah Guthrie‘s sister) Annie Guthrie (identified in the Callella complaint as “A.C.” for Annie Cioni) and her husband Tomasso Cioni (“T.C.”) separately received a text message from the same phone number. The message read: “Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction.” Three minutes after the text messages, a member of the Guthrie family received a call from the same number that lasted nine seconds.
Using “open-source methods,” law enforcement determined the phone number was associated with a voice over internet protocol (VOIP) text and call app that “allows users to obtain another phone number for their mobile device separate from the number assigned to them by their wireless carrier,” per the complaint. An emergency disclosure for the request showed the phone number was registered to email address [email protected]. Law enforcement was further able to trace the VOIP’s access point to an IP address “associated with Callella’s residence in California.”
Callella was arrested and, after being read his rights, admitted to sending the two text messages, the complaint continus. He said he got the family members’ contact information from a “cyber website.” Callella had been watching television coverage of the case, and said he “was trying to see if the family would respond.”
Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home at some point between Saturday night and lunch time on Sunday. The scene, which included a trail of Nancy’s blood on the walkway, strongly suggests a kidnapping. At a Thursday press conference, local and federal law enforcement said they have not identified a person of interest or a suspect.
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