Investigators have delivered a stunning blow to the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case, declaring that all three ransom notes tied to the incident were fake.
Reuters broke the news after speaking with a source inside the FBI who confirmed the bureau’s findings directly.
“None of the ransom notes are believed to be genuine,” the FBI source told the outlet.
Guthrie disappeared from her home in Arizona back in January and has not been seen since. She is the mother of Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of NBC’s “Today” show.
For months, the case centered on the assumption that Guthrie had been abducted for financial gain. That assumption now appears to be crumbling.
Each of the three letters landed in the hands of media outlets rather than law enforcement first, with celebrity news site TMZ receiving several of them directly.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department had built its public narrative around the ransom theory. That theory now stands undermined by the bureau’s own conclusion.
Sheriff’s department spokesperson Angelica Carrillo declined to offer new details when pressed on the case. “We don’t have any updates, other than this is still an active investigation,” Carrillo said.
Carrillo did confirm that physical evidence gathered early in the investigation, including DNA samples and doorbell footage of a man near Guthrie’s front door, “remain under forensic analysis.”
Each fraudulent letter carried a demand for a substantial Bitcoin payment. The first arrived with a payment deadline set for either February 5 or February 9, only days after Guthrie went missing.
A second letter alleged that Guthrie had already died. Air Mail later reported the note contained language apologizing for her death, a detail TMZ’s own reporting pushed back against.
The third and most recent letter reached TMZ just last week. Its author claimed to have captured video of the person responsible for Guthrie’s kidnapping, allegedly recorded the same day she died.
Federal agents tested the legitimacy of one note by sending a small Bitcoin deposit into a digital wallet tied to the supposed kidnapper. That money has sat untouched since it was sent.
That inaction, combined with other evidence gathered during the probe, led the FBI to link the first two letters to a single author. Investigators found no connection between that person and Guthrie’s actual disappearance.
TMZ has reported separately that a man claiming inside knowledge of the case sent the outlet more than a dozen emails over an extended period.
His earliest message pressed for the Bitcoin payment and stated that “time is more than relevant.”
A later email from the same sender read that time was “no longer an issue,” language that appeared to hint Guthrie was no longer alive.
TMZ has kept the full contents of that email exchange out of its published reporting.
With the ransom notes now dismissed as fabrications, the FBI and local investigators are left without a confirmed motive behind Guthrie’s disappearance.
No arrests have been announced, and Guthrie’s whereabouts remain unknown despite months of searching.
She is presumed dead by investigators, though no remains have been located or identified.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has yet to say publicly whether it will revise its theory of the case following the FBI’s announcement.
