FBI determines Nancy Guthrie ransom notes to be fake: report

“None of the ransom notes are believed to be genuine,” an FBI source told Reuters. Many of the notes have been sent to celeb tabloid outlet TMZ. Guthrie, who has been missing since her disappearance in January, is the mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie and lived in Arizona. She is believed to be deceased.

The FBI's determination that the ransom notes were fake undermines the fundamental premise from the Pima County Sheriff's Department that she was kidnapped for ransom in the first place. "We don't have any updates, other than this is still an active investigation," the sheriff's department spokesperson, Angelica Carrillo, said. She added that DNA samples as well as video of the suspected kidnapper on Guthrie's doorstep "remain under forensic analysis."

The three ransom notes reported to be fake were delivered to media outlets, including TMZ. The notes, which demanded millions of dollars in Bitcoin, were subsequently handed over to authorities for review.

The first note had a deadline for payment on February 5 and 9, just a handful of days after Guthrie was kidnapped. A second note reportedly said that Guthrie had died. A later report from Air Mail claimed that the second note had an "apology" tied to Guthrie's death, but this was disputed by a report from TMZ.

TMZ got what was reported to be the third false ransom note last week after the sender claimed he caught the "main guy" who kidnapped Guthrie on video the day that she died.

The FBI had deposited a small amount of Bitcoin into the claimed kidnapper's Bitcoin wallet in an attempt to trace the payment, but the money was never taken out of the account. Through that and other evidence, the FBI determined that the first two ransom notes were from the same person but were not connected to Guthrie's disappearance.

Although there were three ransom notes determined to be fake, as reported by Reuters, TMZ has said that one of the men who claimed to know about the kidnapping had sent over a dozen emails to the outlet. In the first email, the man was demanding the Bitcoin and said that "time is more than relevant."

In another email, he had written that time was "no longer an issue," suggesting that Guthrie was dead. TMZ did not disclose the content of all the correspondence from the man who reportedly sent over the emails.

Authorities are still working to determine who kidnapped Guthrie from her Arizona home, and the case has been under investigation for months without many solid leads.

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