Savannah Guthrie returned to the TODAY show on Monday morning. This came two months after her mother Nancy Guthrie, 84, was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Sadly, Nancy remains missing, and the search for her continues.
Now, a former FBI agent is offering Savannah advice on how she can crack this case. Unfortunately for Savannah, however, this strategy would prove to be quite costly.
FBI Agent Offers Savannah Advice
The former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer is speaking out to say that paying the person who has sent multiple ransom notes about Nancy could yield clues about their identity. This comes after TMZ received two more ransom notes for Nancy on Monday following Savannah’s TODAY return. Whoever wrote the notes demanded payment in bitcoin in return for delivering Nancy’s kidnappers “on a silver platter.”
Jennifer told Newsweek that paying up could be worth it to “tickle the wire.” This was a reference to a federal law enforcement tactic in which investigators take some kind of action to prompt a target to reveal incriminating details.
“Tickling the wire in this case would be putting half a bitcoin and seeing what happens to it,” Jennifer said. “Do they take it? Do they convert it to pesos? It’s internationally tracked. How does it come out into currency? Do they just leave it there?”
Ex-FBI Agent Doubles Down
Jennifer went on to say that while the person behind the bitcoin account could be anonymous, law enforcement could still glean information from a transaction and see where it leads.
“Once it’s gone, it’s going to be gone. But I would want that last bread crumb. I think it would be worth it to me,” Jennifer stated.
Jennifer stressed that she is not suggesting this because she thinks the ransom note sender definitely has knowledge about the case.
“I think it’s very unlikely, but minimally you might be able get this extortionist off the street,” she said.
“For $34,000, that’s a cheap price,” she added. This is roughly half the rough value of half a bitcoin.
Jennifer previously said that the person who wrote these new ransom notes timed them to coincide with Savannah’s TODAY return on Monday “to further torment her and her family.” The former FBI agent also questioned why the sender was not seeking the larger reward that is being offered in Nancy’s case.
“Why they wouldn’t go forward and try to seek the $1.2 million that’s out on the table if they truly have knowledge?” she said.
“The reason this makes sense to me that they don’t have that knowledge is because they’re not seeking the $1.2 million,” Jennifer concluded. “Instead, they’re trying to subvert it with this… quickly paid, no hoops to jump through, just get the money. But I think that these people are scammers.”
Nancy’s Kidnapping
Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the night of Saturday, January 31. That evening, she had dinner with her daughter Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni. They dropped her off at home afterwards at around 9:45pm, and she tragically hasn’t been seen since.
A masked intruder was captured on Nancy’s doorbell ring camera in the early hours of February 1. He managed to cover the camera with some plants before moving forward with the kidnapping.
It has since been revealed that the masked man had been seen in the doorbell ring camera prior to the night Nancy was taken. This indicates that he may have been casing out her home.
The Guthrie family is offering a $1 million reward for information that could lead to Nancy’s recovery. There’s also another reward of more than $200,000, including $100,000 from the FBI, that is being offered for information about her whereabouts or that could lead to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.
This has clearly been an extremely difficult time for Savannah and her entire family. Please join us in saying a prayer for the return of Nancy Guthrie.