A disturbing ransom note alleging that Nancy Guthrie died after being kidnapped is offering investigators a clearer window into the thinking of those responsible, a former FBI agent says.
The recently disclosed message, which claimed the 84-year-old had died and reportedly included an expression of regret to her relatives, provides new clues about the perpetrators’ motives and state of mind, Dr. Bryanna Fox told the Daily Mail.
Fox, a former FBI special agent who worked in the bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit, said the alleged kidnappers’ choice to keep contacting the Guthrie family after her reported death was both opportunistic and highly risky.
According to Fox, the continued outreach was unlikely to have been driven by compassion for Savannah Guthrie and her siblings. Rather, she described it as a “strategic” final attempt to pressure the Today host’s family for money.
“It was just them not giving up trying to get money out of the family,” Fox said. “This was them still being selfish and thinking, ‘how can we turn this horrible situation into a financial win for ourselves?’”
Nancy Guthrie’s family and local media outlets received two notes in the days after her January abduction. The first demanded millions of dollars in bitcoin for her safe return, while the second said the 84-year-old had died, sources told CBS.
In that second communication, the suspected abductors reportedly said they had not meant for Guthrie to die and included an apology to her family. Fox said that, based on her experience, she would be skeptical of any sincere remorse.
“That would be absolutely antithetical to the profile of the typical kidnapper for ransom,” she said. “The person that we see at the door with the gun and the holster was trying to instill fear.”
Today show host Savannah Guthrie and her mother Nancy Guthrie in 2021. Nancy was last seen on the night of January 31
Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early hours of February 1
‘We also know there’s some level of violence with Nancy Guthrie’s abduction when they were removing her from the house, because we saw the blood trail. That’s not somebody that you think of as empathetic or concerned with her wellbeing.’
She added: ‘That kind of person does not apologize.’
As a former FBI special agent, Fox said this reinforces certain profile of criminal she learned about in the bureau – ‘cold, calculated’ kidnappers who target vulnerable people for ransom.
‘When you think of a kidnapper-for-ransom, in a way, they are like a business person,’ she explained. ‘They are after the bottom line. This is not an emotional crime. This is not in the heat of the moment. It is cold. It is calculated. It is all about benefits and reducing risks. It’s not somebody who’s very empathetic and warm. It is about making money.’
Almost five months has now passed since Nancy was kidnapped in the dead of the night from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on February 1.
In the days that followed, Savannah and her siblings responded to some of the ransom notes with gut-wrenching video statements posted online.
But, despite their plea to the perpetrators and offer to meet their financial demands,, investigators appear to be no closer to locating Guthrie or identifying and tracking down her kidnappers.
Now, new details have emerged about the contents of some of the ransom notes.
The biggest clue to date has come from Nest camera footage which captured a masked man at her front door in the early hours of February 1
In the first ransom note, sent on February 2, the sender described Guthrie as ‘safe but scared’ and demanded $4 million in Bitcoin by a deadline of 5pm on February 5.
That note was sent to three media outlets – two local news stations and TMZ – and gave highly specific details about Guthrie’s home, including that an Apple Watch with a white band was on the floor of her bedroom and that her back porch light was broken.
The note was addressed to Savannah Guthrie, multiple sources told CBS The note also correctly described what Guthrie was wearing on the night of her disappearance and referred to a broken floodlight in her yard.
A second deadline of February 9 was given if the first wasn’t met, but the cost would rise to $6 million. The note reportedly was signed off menacingly: ‘Or else.’
Yet on February 6, four days after the first note and three days prior to the deadline, a new note arrived in which the sender made an ‘apology’ for her inadvertent death, according to multiple news outlets who cited sources involved in the investigation.
The note, which came from the same IP address as the earlier emails, struck a more rambling, less confident tone before offering to strike a deal to exchange Guthrie’s body for money, the outlet reported.
There has been some confusion and mixed reporting about the apparent apology in the second note.
Nancy and Savannah Guthrie on the set of the Today show. Five months have passed since Nancy’s abduction
The digital newsletter Air Mail originally reported the news on Friday. CBS said sources also confirmed there was an apology made in the second letter.
But TMZ said the note it had received had no such language in it.
Savannah’s own network NBC News then reported that the note said Nancy had died but contained no apology or request for payment for the release of her body.
Whatever the case, there remains some discrepancy in the precise contents and language of the note.
And, according to Fox, this exact wording matters.
‘We’re hearing an interpretation from someone who either saw the note or heard about it from somebody else, and it’s their interpretation of it,’ she said.
‘That’s important because when you’re analyzing a ransom note, every single word matters and means something.’
It’s something that is drilled into new recruits during training at the FBI. When Fox entered the bureau’s academy, one of her first assignments was to go through the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note line by line.
‘What words mattered? Why did they matter? What did this signify? How did language change throughout the note and what does it mean that it changed? Every single thing we hyper-analyze because it matters,’ she said.
While the wording remains unclear, it was clear back in February that the contents of the second note were being taken seriously.
Hours after the note was sent, Savannah and her siblings posted a new video message directly addressing the kidnappers.
Unlike the first video, there was no request for proof of life. ‘We received your message and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,’ Savannah simply said.
Fox told the Daily Mail at the time that the marked shift in tone and language in the video suggested that the latest note had included information indicating that their mother was no longer alive. At her request, we did not report that out of respect for the Guthrie family.
These latest reports about the second note appear to have proven this theory correct.
‘I did see the dramatic shift in how the Guthrie siblings had reacted to this new note – so much more somber, the specific words that they used. It was clear that they were responding in a way that suggested that their mother had passed, and they knew that, but the public didn’t, and they didn’t exactly say it, but they were only concerned about speaking with this kidnapper,’ she said.
A woman places flowers at a memorial set up at the entry to the driveway leading to Nancy’s residence in Tucson
‘And so, I thought that that note stated that Ms Guthrie had indeed passed.’
For both the family and law enforcement, the admission of her death would have instantly made them take the note more seriously because a fraudster would have little to gain from claiming she was dead, Fox said.
If the note came from the genuine kidnapper, as investigators seem to believe, then they were taking a big risk by making contact to inform the family of Nancy’s death.
‘If it is actually the kidnapper, we need to think about what it says about them that they are being honest and are still communicating with the family. Why wouldn’t they just stop talking and just try to hide and not leave any more evidence?’ she said.
‘Every time you interact, you leave some evidence. It could be just a small word, a small phrase, or an unusual way of speaking, or it could lead them to a location. Every single time you interact with the family, which is ultimately communicating with law enforcement, you raise the risk of being caught, because just one word could blow the whole thing open.’
Every interaction raises risks, Fox explained.
‘So why would they just not cut bait and just say nothing and say, okay, if she really is deceased, let’s just leave it, pack up and stop interacting because we don’t want to raise the risk when there’s really low benefit.’
Based on the information about the note, Fox believes it all suggests that the kidnappers did intend to abduct her and then return her safely for ransom – but that something went wrong with their plans.
But, for the time being, what really happened and why is something only the kidnappers know.
The FBI has described the suspect seen in the Nest door footage as a man of average build, 5 feet 9 to 5 feet 10 tall and wearing a black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack 25-liter backpack.
Anyone with information is asked to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
