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 just before the six-month anniversary of Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping, suggest that whoever was responsible for her abduction may not have intended to kill her.
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.
The two ransom notes that were released on Friday had been 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, the “Today” show host, 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 their 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.”
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