Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has issued a new statement responding to the new letter sent to TMZ by someone claiming to have video of the missing 84-year-old mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, Nancy Guthrie.
The outlet reported on Thursday, June 25, that it had heard from a person who had previously reached out. This time, the writer claimed two people were behind Nancy’s kidnapping and said a phone stored in a secure location holds footage of both the “main guy” and Nancy, taken on what the letter described as “the day that was probably her last.”
Nanos, who is overseeing the investigation from day one, addressed the report on Friday during an interview on KVOI AM 1030‘s Buckmaster Show. He didn’t mince words. “I think the FBI has done a number of arrests for false or fake ransom notes,” he said, as quoted by Newsweek. “It’s a shame that that happens, but I think we’re looking at another one of those today.”
On the Buckmaster Show, Nanos said the FBI is leading the review of the ransom notes. “Those two… that someone believes may or may not have some legitimacy to them, and the FBI is working that,” he said. “I can’t tell you much more on that, because it would be inappropriate. It is ongoing.”
Turning to the latest letter to TMZ, Nanos noted that fake claims tend to multiply when a case captures national attention. “It is a shame that these type of events occur, people have great interest… that’s good because it helps us, but then it gets really gets abused,” he said.
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“People who call in fake ransom notes, people who claim for the sake of media and the family, they get out and disturb, in this case, an entire neighborhood.”
Pointing to the recent arrests of YouTubers in Nancy’s neighborhood, the sheriff said he has to weigh the press’s rights against residents’ rights.
“I have to balance their need to be able to report a very significant, significant event… but we also have to balance that right with the rights of others, and once your right, whatever that right is, oversteps the bounds of somebody else and their rights to exist or or live peacefully, then we have to take some action,” he said.
His comments land just days after fresh details surfaced about earlier ransom notes sent to media outlets in the weeks after Nancy vanished from her home near Tucson, Arizona, in February.
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The first reportedly demanded millions in Bitcoin for her safe return, while the second claimed Nancy had died, according to NBC News. The first note, sent on February 2 to two local news stations and TMZ, demanded millions in Bitcoin.
Per CBS News, it was addressed directly to Savannah and included pointed details about her mother’s home, among them a broken light on the back porch and a white-banded Apple Watch found on the bedroom floor.
Law enforcement has not publicly identified or named any suspects, even though the FBI released doorbell camera footage in February showing a masked, armed man outside Nancy’s home.
Anyone with information about Nancy’s whereabouts or what might have happened to her is asked to call Tucson’s 88-Crime hotline at 1-520-882-7463 or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.