The second of the original ransom notes in the Nancy Guthrie investigation indicated that she had died after her abduction, a federal law enforcement source close to the case told Fox News on Monday.
That second note is believed to have indicated that Guthrie had been “buried with nature,” according to the source.
Authorities have not publicly identified whoever sent the two original notes or confirmed or denied their authenticity. No money or Bitcoin was sent to the original ransom notes, the source told Fox, which investigators say makes it difficult to track down the suspects.
NBC reported on Monday that the second note sent to media outlets indicated that Guthrie had died, but did not include an apology or a request for payment for the return of her body, according to three people familiar with the situation.
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Arizona’s Family reported on Monday that the second ransom note emailed to its sister station in Tucson, KOLD, claimed Guthrie had died and that her abductors “never intended to hurt her.”
According to Arizona’s Family, that message also said, “She perished shortly after she was taken,” “she is buried in nature now,” and “We are truly sorry.”
ABC News reported that local media received a follow-up demand claiming that Guthrie had died and been buried.
Meanwhile, the recipient of a batch of suspected ransom demands in the Guthrie case is pushing back against recent reports claiming the potential abductors were apologetic over the 84-year-old’s purported death.
“I wanna talk about Nancy Guthrie and some communications I had with the FBI that I haven’t talked about until now,” Harvey Levin said in a video posted to TMZ’s YouTube Monday afternoon. “But I want to start with these reports that this ransom letter that we received kind of apologizes to Savannah Guthrie and her family for the kidnapping and that Nancy was no longer alive. That was not in the ransom note that we received.”
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Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, whose department is the lead agency on the case, told Fox News Digital Monday that the FBI has been handling the investigation into numerous ransom demands, some bogus and some with potential to be real, since the beginning.
He deferred comment to the bureau on the new reports, and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It is not in that ransom note at all,” Levin said of the notes sent to TMZ. “It does say that she’s scared but OK. But the ransom note makes no reference to Nancy Guthrie either dying or the kidnappers apologizing.”
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Jason Pack, a retired FBI supervisory special agent and former FBI hostage negotiator, told Fox News Digital that an apology in a ransom communication would be unusual, if investigators determine the message is authentic.
“People who have leverage do not apologize. They demand,” Pack said. “A rambling, labored apology for an inadvertent death suggests something went wrong that was not part of the plan.”
Pack, who spent 25 years with the FBI and served in senior roles in the bureau’s National Press Office, said the language could represent a potential crack in the case if it came from someone genuinely involved.
“That is a crack. And in my experience, cracks are where cases break open,” he said.
A federal law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News Digital Monday that the FBI deposited small sums of crypto into a Bitcoin wallet to test the purported ransom demand’s validity. It was not immediately clear whether the second note sender was credible — or whether any of the ransom demands were real.
They would, however, fit the “wrench attack” pattern that some investigators have floated in connection with the case, in which a “mastermind” computer hacker, probably overseas, could have hired local thugs to kidnap Guthrie in an effort to extort her daughter, “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie.
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Sunday marked 20 weeks since Guthrie’s suspected abduction from her home in the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson. Her whereabouts remain unknown as of Monday.
A series of later emails, however, sent by someone claiming to have knowledge of the case, referenced Guthrie’s death, Levin added.
“That is from the person who sent us multiple emails saying that he knows or knew where Nancy Guthrie was and where the kidnappers were, and he wanted money in return for information,” Levin said. “We passed that along to the FBI as we did the ransom note, but this person kept sending us email. And early on, he said, time is of the essence. And then a few days after the kidnapping, he said, time is no longer of the essence, meaning she wasn’t alive.”
That person had asked for $100,000 for the information — far less than the $4 million ransom demand, he added.
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“This person also said that he was afraid that he might be implicated,” Levin explained. “He had a burglary on his record from I think he said 11 years before, and apparently he knew these kidnappers well enough that he was afraid he might implicated.”
He purportedly said he wanted the money so he could go “underground” and avoid retribution.
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That person never got any money, he said. And when he offered to have TMZ put up the money just to see if it led to any kind of resolution, he said his sources at the FBI stopped responding.
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.
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
