What To Know
- An anonymous tipster emailed TMZ claiming to know the location of missing Nancy Guthrie and demanded Bitcoin.
- Authorities are actively investigating the tipster and suspect the sender could be a woman.
- Despite frustrations, law enforcement remains optimistic the case will eventually be solved.
An anonymous email sent to TMZ could prove to be the clue that breaks the Nancy Guthrie case wide open and leads to a potential arrest and/or recovery.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin spoke with Fox News Digital on Tuesday (June 23) about the case, including an email the outlet received earlier in the investigation from an anonymous tipster. As previously reported, the person who sent the tip claimed to know where Nancy was and offered to share the information in exchange for a Bitcoin payment.
Levin said the person who sent the emails “used several different male names” in their correspondence but always included the same Bitcoin wallet address. He also said investigators recently told him they believe the sender could actually be a woman, but didn’t explain why.
Nancy, the 84-year-old mother of Today‘s Savannah Guthrie, went missing on February 1, when police believe she was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Investigators have released doorbell camera footage of a masked suspect and sent DNA for testing at the FBI lab in Quantico, but no suspects have been named publicly.
“[Law enforcement] are still actively looking for that person and believe they may well find this person now,” Levin said of the anonymous tipster, who allegedly claimed to know the identity of the kidnappers.
Levin also revealed he’d offered to pay the tipster’s ransom as part of a planned documentary on the case, just to see if the information led anywhere. However, he said the authorities “asked us to stand down on the documentary, which we did. We told them we wouldn’t do anything without their approval, because we don’t want to mess with the investigation.”
Back in February, a ransom note was sent to TMZ and other outlets, demanding that the Guthrie family pay upwards of $4 million to a Bitcoin wallet address in exchange for Nancy, who the letter claimed was “safe but scared.” TMZ would later receive emails from the purported tipster.
ABC News reported on Monday (June 22) that an Arizona TV station confirmed it received a letter indicating that Nancy had died, claiming she was “buried in nature.” That TV station kept tight-lipped about the second note at the time it was received.
Levin noted that authorities are “frustrated” because they’ve “put a lot of effort into tracking down whoever wrote these ransom notes to no avail.” However, he said he’d spoken with someone from the FBI who believes the case will be solved, though it might take months or even years.
“This is the second time this person said this to me, that the likelihood is this case is going to be solved in six months, a year, two years,” Levin stated. “Somebody goes to a bar and starts bragging about it, or an ex-lover decides, screw my ex, and I’m going to authorities to blow the whistle… they believe that is going to happen. That it may happen sooner or later, but they really believe it’s going to happen.”