The messages, reportedly sent to TMZ, surfaced as detectives and the FBI continued a two-month search with no public breakthrough.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Investigators in Arizona are reviewing two new purported ransom messages tied to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie, as the search moved deeper into its third month with no arrests and no public proof that the latest claims are real.
The development has renewed attention on one of the country’s most closely watched missing-person cases. Detectives with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI have said for weeks that they believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will from her Tucson-area home. The new messages, which news outlet TMZ said it received Monday, arrived the same day Savannah Guthrie returned to the “Today” show after more than two months away. Authorities have said they are aware of reports about the messages, but the FBI has not publicly confirmed that the notes are authentic or tied to a real lead.
The known timeline begins the evening of Jan. 31, when Nancy Guthrie spent time with relatives and was dropped off at her home near Tucson at 9:48 p.m. The next key events came early the next morning. According to a day-by-day account published by The Associated Press, the home’s doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m., the software later detected movement at 2:12 a.m., and her pacemaker app lost contact with her phone line at 2:28 a.m. By 11:56 a.m., family members who learned she had missed church went to check on her and called 911. Investigators began searching minutes later with drones and dogs. On Feb. 10, the FBI released recovered doorbell footage showing an armed, masked man at the front door. Sheriff Chris Nanos later called that video the single biggest clue in the case. Savannah Guthrie and her siblings then made repeated public appeals. In one early plea, Savannah Guthrie said, “We believe our mom is still out there.”
Officials have built the case around signs that Nancy Guthrie did not leave on her own. The FBI has described her as a vulnerable adult who has difficulty walking, has a pacemaker and needs daily medication for a heart condition. Authorities said blood found on the front porch matched her DNA. In a March television interview, Savannah Guthrie said the home’s back doors were found propped open and that her mother’s phone and purse were still inside. That account added to the concern already raised by the doorbell footage and the sudden loss of pacemaker connectivity. The FBI poster says the person seen near the house appeared to be a man about 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-10 with an average build, wearing gloves and a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. Investigators also searched a home in Rio Rico, about 60 miles south of Tucson, and briefly detained a man during a traffic stop, but he was released and no arrest followed. The newest messages have added another layer of uncertainty because the sender reportedly offered information for bitcoin while also making claims detectives have not verified.
The case has already been marked by promising clues that later weakened. Gloves found about 2 miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home appeared similar to those worn by the masked person in the video, giving investigators an item they hoped might identify a suspect. But Reuters reported that the DNA from those gloves did not match any profile in the national CODIS database, and further work later traced the gloves to a local restaurant employee who was cleared. That left detectives without the break many had expected. Through February and March, the family kept the case in public view with emotional video messages and a reward offer of up to $1 million. The FBI first announced a $50,000 reward and later raised its own offer to $100,000. Savannah Guthrie acknowledged in late March that some messages sent during the investigation were fake, while saying she believed two earlier notes her family answered were real. That history matters now because it shows how much of the case has been shaped not only by evidence from the home and the neighborhood, but also by competing claims, dead ends and the hard task of sorting real information from opportunism.
Procedurally, the investigation remains in an unresolved middle stage. No suspect has been publicly identified in the abduction, and no charges have been announced in connection with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. What investigators have said is narrower and more cautious: the case is active, all serious tips are being reviewed and the FBI and county detectives continue to work together. Newsweek reported that a sheriff’s department spokesperson said all leads tied to the latest messages were being passed to detectives working with the FBI. The FBI has still not said whether the April 6 communications were genuine. One note, according to published accounts, claimed Nancy Guthrie was dead and offered to identify the abductors for one bitcoin. Another claimed she had been seen alive in Sonora, Mexico, and sought a split payment before and after a public arrest. Even if the notes prove false, they can still consume investigative time because detectives have to trace where they came from, whether they repeat details already known only to the public, and whether any part of them points to a real person, account or location. For now, officials have not announced a new search site, a briefing date or a court hearing tied to the latest messages.
The human strain of the case has remained visible from Tucson to New York. Around the Catalina Foothills home, law enforcement vehicles, camera crews and handwritten messages of support became part of the landscape in the first weeks after Nancy Guthrie vanished. At Rockefeller Center on Monday, Savannah Guthrie returned to the anchor desk and thanked viewers for the support she and her family had received. “It is good to be home,” she said, after opening the broadcast. Her co-anchor, Craig Melvin, answered, “It’s good to have you back at home.” The brief exchange did not change the facts of the investigation, but it showed how the case has lived in two places at once: in a Tucson neighborhood where detectives are still chasing leads, and in a national spotlight shaped by Savannah Guthrie’s public role. In an earlier interview, she said, “We are in agony,” a line that captured the long stretch between the first signs of an abduction and the absence of a confirmed answer. The new messages have sharpened that tension again, giving the public dramatic claims while leaving the central question unchanged.
As of April 10, Nancy Guthrie remained missing, no suspect had been publicly named and investigators had not said whether the newest messages were authentic. The next clear turn in the case is likely to come only if detectives can tie the messages to a real lead, identify the masked person on the porch or announce a search, arrest or recovery.
Author note: Last updated April 10, 2026.