A troubling new split has emerged among federal authorities investigating the disappearance of the 84-year-old mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie. According to a Fox News report, some in the FBI believe all three ransom notes sent since Guthrie went missing are apparently fake, though other federal authorities still think they may prove credible.
The disagreement comes as a third ransom note has now been received that claimed to know the kidnapper’s identity. Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson, Arizona, home on Feb. 1.
Former FBI special agent Jennifer Coffindaffer suggested the apology in the second ransom note could have been an effort to portray any death as accidental rather than intentional, possibly to reduce potential criminal liability if suspects believed Guthrie had died during the alleged kidnapping.
Conflicting Accounts of What the Notes Actually Said
The Feb. 6 follow-up message opened with a disjointed apology for Guthrie’s death, offered to return her body for an unspecified price, and claimed she had been “buried in nature,” sources familiar with the case have told Air Mail. A second ransom note was received by a Tucson, Arizona, television station shortly after the disappearance, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke to ABC News. The station chose not to publish the note initially — a decision that kept one of the most disturbing details in the case out of public view for months.
Yet that account has been sharply disputed. TMZ separately maintained that the notes it received contained no apology and made no reference to Guthrie’s death — a discrepancy that muddied the public picture of what the correspondence actually said. Three people familiar with the matter told NBC News that the note indicating Nancy had died contained no apology and made no demand for payment to return her body — directly at odds with the account that the message opened with an apology. TMZ founder Harvey Levin went further still, posting a video asserting that reports his outlet had received a ransom note apologizing for Nancy’s kidnapping and death were outright false.
The conflicting accounts underscore how much of the public picture rests on secondhand descriptions of notes that have never been released.
Why Investigators Treated Some Messages as Credible
Investigators believe the correspondence is authentic and can trace it back to one IP address tied to earlier messages that carried unsettling, specific details about the night Guthrie was taken — including a description of what she was wearing. That level of specificity persuaded investigators they were not dealing with opportunistic hoaxers. The initial Feb. 2 note had demanded $4 million in bitcoin, described Guthrie as “safe but scared,” and laid out exchange terms that read as credible enough to treat as genuine.
Sources told NewsNation’s Brian Entin that the note had explicitly characterized Nancy’s death as unintentional. That framing, combined with the offer to return her body for a price, persuaded investigators the communication warranted serious attention rather than dismissal. NBC News has since learned about one of the messages suggesting Nancy Guthrie may no longer be alive.
Investigators sorting through the flood of correspondence that followed Guthrie’s disappearance organized the messages into three informal categories: those with credible, specific details were considered useful; notes referencing her death were deemed troubling; and the remaining correspondence — apparently the bulk of what poured in — was treated as noise.
Savannah Guthrie’s Direct Plea to the Note Sender
On Feb. 7, the day after the death-referencing note arrived, Savannah appeared in a brief video alongside her siblings Annie and Cameron. The 20-second clip carried none of the urgency of the family’s earlier public appeals. Instead, it was measured — almost careful — as though addressed directly to the person who had sent the note. Savannah said the family had received the message and understood it. She then pleaded directly for Nancy’s return: “Please return our mother so we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will find peace.” She closed by saying the return was “very valuable to us — and we will pay.”
Savannah addressed uncertainty about the notes directly in a March interview with NBC News. She said most messages were likely fake, but the two her family responded to appeared genuine.
That second note effectively reframed the case. What had begun as a kidnapping inquiry began pointing investigators toward the possibility of a homicide — a grim pivot made more plausible by the fact that Guthrie required daily medication to manage a serious heart condition.
A Flood of Messages, Most Dismissed as Noise
Close to a dozen arrived at TMZ alone, sent by a man who claimed insider knowledge of the kidnapping while insisting he was not one of the perpetrators. He said the kidnappers had transported Guthrie to Mexico. He also said he needed money to disappear, fearing retaliation if his cooperation became known.
The sequence of that man’s messages carried its own dark implication. His first email stressed that “time is of the essence.” The following day, he wrote that “time is no longer of the essence” — a shift that TMZ interpreted as a signal that Guthrie had died. TMZ had maintained contact with the FBI from the moment the notes arrived. When TMZ asked the bureau whether paying the requested bitcoin for documentary purposes might advance the investigation, the FBI responded positively and promised follow-up. It never did. TMZ has since attempted to reach the bureau a half dozen times without a response.
The Arizona television station that received the “buried in nature” claim later confirmed that detail. Whether the notes originated from the actual kidnappers or from someone with secondhand knowledge — or no knowledge at all — remains unverified.
No arrests have been made. No significant new leads have emerged. Nancy Guthrie has now been missing for more than four months, and whether she is alive remains an open, agonizing question with no answer in sight.