Second Ransom Letter Revealed: Savannah Guthrie breaks down after sharing a chilling message allegedly sent by her kidnapper to her mother
Details revealed in a chilling ransom note sent after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped show “someone was there,” a retired FBI agent has claimed.
A pair of notes, reportedly from the same IP address, were sent to Guthrie’s family and news outlets days after she was abducted from her Tucson, Arizona, home on Feb. 1.
The first reportedly claimed that Guthrie, 84, was safe, but the second claimed Guthrie – who had a heart condition – had died and been buried in nature.
Nancy Guthrie seen in a Facebook photo.Facebook/Savanah Guthrie
“The IP address match is one data point and it may or may not mean much depending on how sophisticated these people are,” Jason Pack, a retired FBI supervisory special agent with more than two decades of service, told The Post.
“What matters more is whether the style, tone, and language of the first two notes is consistent with each other and inconsistent with everything that came after. In my experience that’s where the real analytical work happens. Ransom communications have a fingerprint to them,” he added.
“Word choice, sentence construction, how someone frames a demand, whether the tone is businesslike or emotional,” Peck continued. “If the first two notes read like the same person wrote them and everything after reads like a different person entirely, that tells investigators something important about who they’re actually dealing with versus who decided to pile on once this became national news.”
The first note reportedly included details about a broken floodlight in Guthrie’s yard and what she was wearing.
An image captured by a security camera shows what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) describes as an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door.via REUTERS
“The specific operational details in that first note, what she was wearing, the damaged floodlight, those aren’t things you read in a news report,” Pack said. “Someone was there.”
In the second note the authors apologized and said she had died — but Pack does not believe it was some confession compelled by guilt.
“If the note is to be believed, notifying the family she was gone was the opening move in a new negotiation, not a moment of conscience,” he said. “But we’re taking the word of someone who abducted an 84 year old woman. That has to be factored into how much weight you put on anything they say.”
Nancy remains missing with no known suspects or leads from investigators nearly five months after the vanishing.
“Today” show host Savannah Guthrie broke down in tears live on air Tuesday following reports on the ransom notes.
Tearful Savannah Guthrie addresses mom Nancy’s disappearance live on ‘Today.’TODAY / NBC
“I don’t have any comment on this story and I’m not involved in our coverage, but I can’t pretend I’m not here,” Guthrie said in an emotional statement from behind the desk of the NBC program, nearly five months after her mother vanished.
“This is a new story today that is on your radar but this is the life that my sister lives, that I live, that my brother lives, that our extended families live, that our children live everyday,” Savannah, 54, said.
“We are in agony and we cannot be at peace. No matter how much I try to come out here everyday and smile and find that joy — and I will, I promise I will — this is the moment to tell you we need your help, we’re begging for your help and I’m not going to miss that opportunity.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said the investigation into Nancy’s disappearance remains active.
