A longtime criminal profiler says the purported ransom messages linked to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance do not ring true, telling News Agency that the wording seems to reflect two very different mindsets — one resembling a detached, ruthless “psychopath” and another that appears far more “emotional.”
“Bottom line is, I don’t believe they’re real,” criminal profiler John Kelly said in an interview. “The first note is strictly about the dollars, about the bucks….Now when you get into the second note, you’re talking about a kind of a different personality to me.”
Kelly said the circumstances of the abduction showed no sign of compassion: a masked gunman, an early-morning break-in, Guthrie taken from her bed, and blood left behind at her front door.
“Most of these guys are psycho, and going to do that, rouse an older woman out of her bed and haul her away like that bleeding all over the place…they’re going to just want to get away from the problem as quick as possible,” Kelly said. “They’re not going to be worried about leaving condolences.”
An armed person is seen apparently interfering with the doorbell camera outside Nancy Guthrie’s front door on the morning she vanished in Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 1, 2026. An undated image shows Guthrie, 84, the mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie. (Provided by FBI; Courtesy of NBC)
Portions of the first message reportedly demanded millions of dollars in Bitcoin, set a payment deadline and referenced crime-scene information that was not broadly known when it was sent to local news outlets. The note did not provide any proof that Guthrie was still alive.
This week, additional information emerged about the second message — or at least the versions of it that were delivered to various media organizations.
That message claimed Guthrie had died unintentionally after she was abducted, a federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told Fox News on Monday. It also stated that she had been “buried with nature.”
Aerial drone shots show the home of Nancy Guthrie in Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 3, 2026. Nancy Guthrie, mother of ‘Today’ show host Savannah Guthrie, is suspected of being abducted from her home. (Fox Flight Team/Fox News)
“She’s not with us anymore, was not ‘intentional,'” Kelly said. “Now I see an emotional word: ‘intentional.'”
And that doesn’t fit the profile that Kelly sees, he said.
“This is a person to me that wouldn’t know a feeling if they tripped over one,” he told News Agency.
A split image showing a masked intruder at Nancy Guthrie’s home and the blood found at her doorstep the morning after she is believed to have been abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills of Tucson, Arizona. (FBI, Derek Shook for News Agency)
In taking Guthrie, the abductor or abductors “objectified her,” Kelly said.
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“That’s very different than what I’m seeing in the few words that I was able to see…in the ransom note saying that it wasn’t intentional and she’s buried with nature now,” Kelly explained. “Like that should give us some comfort after that whole horrific trial of removing Nancy and freaking torturing her emotionally right out of that house.“
Savannah Guthrie sat down with fellow “Today” show host Hoda Kotb to discuss her mother’s disappearance. (NBC/Today)
Authorities haven’t publicly confirmed or ruled out the authenticity of the demands.
Early on, they appear to have taken them seriously, with Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix field office, sitting down with Guthrie’s adult children to record a video response to the first note.
Pima County deputies examine a flyer taped to the mailbox outside Nancy Guthrie’s home in Tucson, Ariz., on Feb. 23, 2026. Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, is believed to have been abducted from her home in the early hours of Feb. 1. (Michael Ruiz/News Agency)
The 84-year-old Guthrie’s daughter, “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, has also said publicly that she believes at least two of the notes 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, and I didn’t see them,” she told colleague Hoda Kotb in a March interview. “…But I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”
FBI agents and law enforcement officers conduct a door-to-door search in Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood in Tucson, Ariz., on March 5, 2026. Guthrie has been missing since early February 2026. (Matthew Symons for News Agency)
Kelly, a veteran profiler and psychoanalyst who has interviewed a number of serial killers, said he believes the kidnapper is a “very cruel person” without remorse or guilt and likely a “psychopath.”
“I was watching his eyes on the video that we could get to see, I mean, I wasn’t seeing normal blinking taking place. I wasn’t seeing anxiety,” Kelly said. “Psychopaths are like that — they can be as cool as cucumbers. They don’t feel a whole lot of fear…They just go about their business.“
Anyone with information on Guthrie’s case is asked to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI. There is a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that cracks the case.
Tips can be provided anonymously to Tucson’s Crime Stoppers affiliate, 88-Crime, at 1-520-882-7463.
