A kidnapper sends a video. The victim speaks. She holds today's newspaper.
That used to be enough. It's not anymore.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC's 'Today' show host Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for 11 days. Investigators have doorbell camera footage, DNA-confirmed blood evidence, a $6 million (£4.4 million)bitcoinransom demand, and nearly 18,000 tips. What they don't have is something families once took for granted: a reliable way to confirm she's still alive.
Nancy Guthrie went to bed at her Tucson,Arizona, home on the evening of 31 January. By 1:47 am on 1 February, her doorbell camera had disconnected. When she didn't show up to church that Sunday, her family drove to her house and found her phone, wallet, and daily medication sitting inside.
She was gone. Blood found on the front porch later matched her DNA.
The FBIreleased surveillance footageshowing a masked, armed individual at her door that night. The agency is offering a $50,000 (£36,700) reward. Several hundred detectives and agents are now assigned to the case.
Here's the problem nobody saw coming.
Savannah Guthrie addressed her mother's potential captors in anInstagramvideo last week. Her voice cracked. But between the plea and the desperation, she acknowledged something chilling: 'We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive.'
She's right. And the FBI knows it.
'WithAIthese days you can make videos that appear to be very real. So we can't just take a video and trust that that's proof of life,' Heith Janke, the FBI's special agent in charge of the Phoenix field office, said at a press conference.
Source: International Business Times UK
