Nancy Guthrie Ransom Notes Demanded Millions, Then Said She Had Perished
The 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, the television news anchor, has been missing for nearly six months.
A memorial near the driveway to Nancy Guthrie’s residence in February in Tucson, Ariz.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty Images
By
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
July 31, 2026
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A ransom note addressed to Savannah Guthrie a day after her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, was kidnapped said that the elder Ms. Guthrie was “safe but scared,” but another note sent several days later said that she had died unexpectedly of a medical condition.
The notes, released on Friday by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona, suggested that whoever was responsible for her abduction may not have intended to kill her. And their release, nearly six months after Ms. Guthrie’s disappearance, was also a sign of how little apparent progress the investigation has made.
The sheriff’s department released the notes without saying whether they were authentic, but said that investigators hoped someone would recognize the writer’s “patterns of word choice, syntax and phraseology.”
“We believe these distinctive linguistic characteristics may be recognizable to someone who knows or has interacted with the notes’ writer,” the department said.
Savannah Guthrie, who hosts the “Today” show, has said that she believes that the two ransom notes were most likely authentic. Over the months, she has also indicated that she believes her mother may no longer be alive, but has been adamant that her family still needs to know what happened to her.
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The two ransom notes were sent to news outlets in the days after the kidnapping, which took place in the early hours of Feb. 1 at Nancy Guthrie’s home near Tucson. Investigators have released images and video from Ms. Guthrie’s
doorbell camera that show a masked and armed man at her door, but they have not been able to identify the person.
The first note, on Feb. 2, demanded $4 million in Bitcoin from Savannah Guthrie for the release of her mother by Feb. 5. If that deadline passed, the note said, the ransom would rise to $6 million and would need to be paid by Feb. 9.
“If payment is not received by the last deadline on Monday the 9th at 5 p.m., she will be killed,” the note said. “Your mother is aware of this and her life is in your hands.”
The note included two details about the state of Ms. Guthrie’s home — a broken floodlight in the backyard and a white smart watch on the floor of her bedroom — that indicated it could be authentic.
Around that time, Savannah Guthrie said in a video online that her family was willing to pay but needed to know that the person being paid actually had her mother.
The second note was sent on Feb. 6, notably before the final deadline the first note had given, and was addressed to the Guthrie family. In it, the author said that “we did not fully grasp the seriousness” of Ms. Guthrie’s physical condition.
“We never intended to hurt her, that was not our intention,” it read. “She perished shortly after she was taken. We believe it was heart related. She is buried in nature now.”
“Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome,” it continued. “We want your family to know this and hope you all can find peace. We are truly sorry.”
In addition to asking the public to consider the author’s writing style, investigators in Tucson asked people to consider whether any men they knew had changed their mood or appearance, had unexplained injuries or left the region around the time she was abducted.
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In the weeks after Ms. Guthrie was kidnapped, Savannah Guthrie and her two older siblings had issued several videos in which they pleaded for their mother’s release and said they would pay for her return but wanted proof that the ransom notes’ author actually had her.
In one video issued on Feb. 7, the day after the second note was sent, Ms. Guthrie said that she and her siblings had
received the kidnapper’s message.
“We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” she said. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Later that month, Ms. Guthrie
issued a $1 million reward for any information leading to finding her mother, in addition to the $100,000 that the F.B.I. had offered for tips.
Earlier this week, Savannah Guthrie had made another plea to whoever is responsible for her mother’s abduction, saying she was begging them “to do the right thing now.”