An Arizona news anchor who saw the possible Nancy Guthrie ransom note sent to her station revealed that it came via email — and it was “clear after a couple of sentences” that it “might not be a hoax.”
“A lot of it is information that only someone who was holding her for ransom would know,” Mary Coleman, anchor for Arizona-based CNN affiliate KOLD 13 News, told CNN Wednesday.
“Some very sensitive information and things that people who weren’t there when she was taken captive wouldn’t know,” she added.
“It also included a dollar amount, a deadline, and, again, other specifics that only Guthrie’s abductor might know, so that definitely raised some red flags,” Coleman said, adding that it was clear immediately that it might not be a sick prank.
The search for the 84-year-old mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie is entering its fifth day, with no suspects identified and no clear picture of what may have happened to her.
Coleman added that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was checking the ransom note sent to their newsroom and had asked for further details.
“We immediately sent that information over to the sheriff’s department, and they’re, of course, looking into the legitimacy of it,” she said.
“One of the detectives did get back to us and asked us for some more information so that they can start searching for an IP address and things of that nature to try and figure out who or what people are responsible here,” Coleman said.
It isn’t known if the note sent to KOLD 13 News is the same one that was sent to TMZ.
That note, sent on Tuesday, reportedly asked for millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin for Nancy’s safe return.
The note also listed a specific bitcoin address and gave specific details about what Nancy was wearing on the night she disappeared.
Nancy, who has a pacemaker and requires daily life-saving medication, was last seen around 9:45 p.m. Saturday after she was dropped off at her Tucson, Ariz., home by her daughter, Annie, and her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni.
Here’s the latest on Savannah Guthrie’s missing mom
When she failed to show up at church Sunday morning, a concerned fellow worshipper alerted the family, who called the police.
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Annie and Cameron, made a tearful appeal for their mother’s safe return on Instagram Wednesday evening.
“We need to know without a doubt that she’s alive and that you have her,” Savannah said.
“We want to hear from you, and we are ready to listen. Please reach out to us,” she added.
Savannah said her mother was in “constant pain,” and she indicated that she and the family were “ready to talk” to her kidnappers.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, however, said the video plea doesn’t necessarily mean Nancy was kidnapped — and suggested that the family has yet to receive a legitimate ransom demand.
“To me, it reads like an effort to establish some sort of communication,” McCabe told CNN late Wednesday. “We don’t know this for sure, but I feel this is a fairly strong signal they don’t believe they’ve had a legitimate ransom demand yet.
“What you hear the family saying is, ‘We’re ready to talk, reach out to us, we just want to know you have our mother.’ That’s not something that you would do if already in negotiations with someone that you actually thought had the victim.”
But McCabe said the appeal is not uncommon before adding: “In these situations, you get a lot of false leads, you get a lot of scammers, you get a lot of people trying to take advantage of a horrible situation — which is unthinkable, but it does happen.”
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