A former FBI special agent has warned that the ransom notes sent in the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie bear the hallmarks of abad-faith bluff. Speaking to a US news programme, he said dealing with the sender was'like negotiating with Iran'.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, vanished from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on 1 February. Investigators believe she was the victim of a targeted kidnapping. In the days that followed, media outlets began receivingransom demands for millions of dollars in Bitcoin, creating a parallel drama over whether the notes were genuine and whether Guthrie was still alive.
Speaking on the 20 April episode ofNewsNation's Brian Entin Investigates, retired FBI special agent Steve Moore said the behaviour of whoever sent the ransom notes had been troubling from the start.
'They would provide no proof of life,' he told host Brian Entin. 'They didn't take Nancy's safety into consideration, according to physical evidence at the scene.'
Moore said the conduct of the supposed kidnappers had undermined their credibility at every stage. 'Everything they did was in bad faith. So it's like negotiating with Iran,' he said. 'They can say they're going to do something, but we sure don't trust them to do anything because they've never demonstrated any bit of integrity or good faith in the investigation.'
The physical evidence he referred to includes blood found at Guthrie's Tucson home, which authorities later confirmed was hers. That finding shifted the tone of the case from a missing persons search to something far more serious.
Not long afterwards, the FBI released surveillance footage of a masked man appearing to tamper with Guthrie's doorbell camera around the time she disappeared. Investigators have not publicly identified the man or linked him by name to the ransom messages.
Moore also said the decision to send the demands to media organisations, including TMZ, rather than deal directly with law enforcement or the family, weakened any claim that the sender was seriously trying to negotiate. 'They wanted the negotiations public,' he said, suggesting the move was more about leverage or spectacle than a credible exchange.
Within the first week of the investigation, the Guthrie family found themselves drawn into that public spectacle. Savannah Guthrie and her siblings recorded direct video appeals after ransom notes began arriving at newsrooms.
In an Instagram video posted on 4 February, Savannah Guthrie addressed the person believed to have taken her mother directly. 'We too have heard the reports about a ransom letter in the media. As a family, we are doing everything that we can. We are ready to talk,' she said.
Source: International Business Times UK
