The second ransom note sent to a Tucson television station shortly after the February abduction of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie claimed she had died shortly after being taken and was buried “in nature,” according to a new report.
The note, received around February 6, was a major shift from the earlier message from the same IP address that had demanded millions in bitcoin for her safe return.
The latter note adopted a “new, less confident tone” and included a “sputtering and labored” apology for her “inadvertent death,” sources told Air Mail in a detailed report on the investigation.
The person claiming to be the kidnapper reportedly floated returning her body in exchange for payment.
After the second note was received, Savannah Guthrie posted a video addressing the alleged kidnapper.
“We received your message and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie said. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. … This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Investigators with the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department were given the notes, which allegedly contained specific, non-public details about the crime scene, and flagged them as potentially credible and likely originating from the actual abductor or abductors.
These details included a broken floodlight behind Guthrie’s home and information about the Apple Watch she was wearing when she disappeared.
“There are a lot of different notes, I think, that came, and I think most of them — it’s my understanding — are not real, and I didn’t see them,” Savannah Guthrie said in an interview with NBC. “But I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”
Several ransom notes were sent to media outlets in the days after the disappearance, including TMZ, which has confirmed the notes they received did not mention her death.
TMZ also received emails from another individual claiming to know Guthrie’s location and the kidnappers’ whereabouts in exchange for bitcoin.
One of those emails initially said “time is of the essence,” but a later message stated “time is no longer of the essence,” which Levin interpreted as possibly implying she was no longer alive.
Hellbound and Down 