Ransom note says Savannah Guthrie’s mother died after abduction

A ransom note sent days after Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home said she had died and that her death was not intentional, according to U.S. media reports citing law enforcement sources.

The note was one of at least two communications addressed to Guthrie’s family and sent to news organizations after she disappeared in late January from her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The first note demanded millions of dollars in bitcoin for her release, while a second note, sent Feb. 6, said she had died, the BBC’s U.S. partner CBS and other outlets reported.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department declined to discuss the contents of the notes, saying only that the investigation “remains active and ongoing.”

“The Pima County Sheriff’s Department continues to work closely with the FBI as investigators follow up on leads, review information, and pursue the facts surrounding this case,” a department spokesperson said.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from The Guardian, and the Guthrie family made no immediate public statement Monday about the reported contents of the notes.

Nancy Guthrie vanished after relatives dropped her off at her home on Jan. 31. Concern grew the next morning when she failed to go to a friend’s house to watch a virtual Sunday church service. Authorities later said they believed she had been kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will after blood was found near her front doorstep.

Investigators have spent months searching for Guthrie and pursuing leads with the FBI. Authorities released surveillance footage showing a masked person outside her home on the night she disappeared. Volunteers and search teams also scoured nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders. The Guardian reported that a volunteer group recently searched for her body near the Arizona-Mexico border but did not report finding her.

The first ransom note arrived the day after Guthrie went missing, according to CBS and other outlets. It demanded millions in bitcoin and included specific details about her home, her bedroom and the area around the property, investigators told CBS. The note was reportedly addressed to Savannah Guthrie and sent to multiple media outlets, including a local television station.

CNN reported that news organizations agreed to delay publishing details of the notes at the request of law enforcement so that any future communications from the kidnapper or kidnappers could be authenticated. Jessica Bobula, news director at Tucson station KOLD, said Monday that her station received several notes after Guthrie disappeared, notified authorities and shared only what the FBI had released about them.

The second note reportedly used language similar to the first but did not include a ransom demand. It apologized to the family, said Nancy Guthrie had died and indicated that those responsible did not mean for her to die, according to media reports citing law enforcement sources.

After the first two notes, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released a video pleading for their mother’s return.

“We received your message, and we understand,” Savannah Guthrie said in the video. “We beg you now to return our mother to us.” She said the family “would pay.”

Authorities and Guthrie’s family repeatedly warned that Nancy Guthrie was in poor health and did not have critical medication. The family offered a $1 million reward, in addition to $100,000 pledged by the FBI, for information leading to her return.

On Feb. 24, Savannah Guthrie said the family would keep hoping, even though they “know that she may be lost, she may already be gone.” In a March interview with NBC, she said several ransom notes had been sent and that she believed some were bogus, though her family considered the first two authentic.

Savannah Guthrie stepped away from NBC’s Today show for more than two months during the investigation and returned to the program in early April as the search continued.