Second Ransom Note Says Nancy Guthrie Died After Abduction

For nearly five months, the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has been handled as a kidnapping with a hostage who might still come home. The 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie vanished from her Tucson, Arizona home back in February, and her family has spent the time since begging her abductor to bring her back. This week, the case took a turn that nobody in the family wanted to hear.

A second ransom note, sent days after the first, reportedly said Nancy is dead. And the people who looked at it think the person who wrote it is the same person who took her.

The Second Note That Shifted Everything

The note arrived on February 6, less than a week after Nancy was taken. According to sources close to the investigation, it said her death was an accident and claimed she was "buried with nature now." One reporter who spoke with a source said the message indicated her death was not intentional but did not include a direct apology, even though some early reports described a fumbling, labored apology built into the writing.

That single line changed how people are talking about this case. What started as a search for a missing woman is now being treated by some investigators as a possible homicide. The second note did not make any money demand at all, which is part of why investigators took it seriously. A kidnapper looking for cash keeps asking for cash. This one stopped asking.

The First Note Knew Too Much

The reason any of these notes are being taken seriously comes down to detail. The first one, sent February 2, around a day after Nancy was reported missing, went to three media outlets through their online tip lines. Two were local news stations. One was TMZ. It was addressed to Savannah Guthrie by name and demanded millions in bitcoin for her mother's release. Early reporting put the figure at $4 million.

What made detectives sit up was the stuff only someone who had been inside that house would know. The note described an Apple Watch with a white band sitting on the floor of Nancy's bedroom. It mentioned that the back porch light was broken. It correctly described what she had been wearing the night she vanished. Those aren't details you pull off a news broadcast. According to case records, blood found at the front door was confirmed to be Nancy's, and the watch had stopped syncing with her pacemaker around 2:30 in the morning, which is how authorities pinned down the timing of the abduction.

Why Investigators Think One Person Wrote Both

Here's the part that ties the two notes together. Investigators believe both messages came from the same computer, sent from the same IP address. The writing style and language in the two were similar enough that the people reviewing them concluded the same person, or group, was behind both.

That matters because the first note proved the writer had real knowledge of the crime scene. If the second note came from the same source, then the claim that Nancy died carries a lot more weight than some random message from a stranger. Investigators familiar with the case told reporters they believe both notes were authentic, and the Guthrie family said in March that they believe the same thing.

TMZ Says Not So Fast

Not everyone agrees on what the notes actually said. Harvey Levin of TMZ went on YouTube to push back hard on the reports. He confirmed his outlet received a ransom note that the FBI verified as real, but he said flatly that the note TMZ got did not contain an apology and did not say Nancy was dead.

According to Levin, the confusion comes from a totally different source. He said TMZ received around a dozen emails from a person who claimed to know where Nancy and her kidnappers were, but who was not the kidnapper. One of those emails included the line "time is no longer of the essence," which could be read as a hint that she had died. Levin even proposed a documentary where TMZ would pay the tipster to see where the money led. He said the FBI was interested at first, then stopped answering him. "They've ghosted me and I don't know what that's about," Levin said, adding that he'd called about half a dozen times in two weeks with no response.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Law enforcement actually has a nickname for how they've been sorting all this mail. They call it "the good, the bad, and the ugly."

The "good" was the first note, the February 2 message that at least confirmed Nancy was alive. The "bad" was the February 6 note saying she had died. And the "ugly" covers all the fake letters, the ones sent by people pretending to be the kidnapper to try to grab the ransom money for themselves. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said the FBI has been sorting through numerous ransom demands, some bogus and some with real potential, since the beginning. Fake notes in cases like this usually outnumber the real ones by a wide margin, which is exactly why those specific scene details in the first note mattered so much. One report from AirMail said the February 6 note even floated the idea that her body could be returned for a payment.

One Man Is Already Headed to Trial

The "ugly" pile already produced a real defendant. Derrick Callella, 42, was charged with transmitting a demand for ransom in interstate commerce and using a telecommunications device to abuse, threaten, or harass without disclosing his identity.

The grand jury indictment lays out how Callella sent two text messages to two members of the Guthrie family on February 4, asking, "Did you get the bitcoin were waiting on our end for the transaction." Callella told investigators he was following the case on TV and pulled the family's contact information off a "cyber website," per the indictment. He is not believed to be the person who took Nancy. His trial was set to begin June 23 at the federal courthouse in Tucson, according to the latest reporting.

How the Family Responded

The day after that second note landed, Savannah and her two siblings, Annie and Camron, posted a 20-second video to Instagram aimed directly at whoever was writing. "We received your message and we understand," Savannah said. "We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we can have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay."

By then the ransom demand had reportedly climbed to $6 million, with a deadline of 5 p.m. on February 9. Two separate deadlines came and went with no exchange. Nancy is still missing. Savannah, who suspended her broadcasting work including coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, returned to her co-host chair at "Today" in April. She later told Jenna Bush Hager through tears, "It's really hard to come back. I've been trying so hard to hold it together, and I promise I will."

Where the Search Stands Now

Months in, there is still no named suspect and no stated motive. The doorbell camera footage shows a masked, armed person carrying a backpack and tampering with the camera at Nancy's home before she vanished, but nobody has been publicly identified as that figure. The FBI is reportedly analyzing mixed DNA recovered from the house, including a hair sample. A combined reward of $1.2 million is on the table, with $1 million from the family and $100,000 from the FBI.

In June, a tip sent to a Mexican volunteer group claimed Nancy was buried in an unmarked grave near Nogales, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Searchers checked the area and found nothing. Sheriff Nanos has said his department remains committed to the case and believes an arrest will eventually be made. Anyone with information can call the Pima County Sheriff's Department tip line at 520-351-4900 or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. For a family that's been told their mother is gone by the same person who took her, an answer that holds up still hasn't come.