The case of the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of the renowned American host Savannah Guthrie, has taken a new turn after a former FBI agent showed he was contacted several times by people claiming to be hostage to 84-year-old.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, former FBI special agent, reportedly received four ransom messages, about two months after Guthrie's disappearance.
According to Coffindaffer, messages had arrived at a personal email address that was very rarely used and the authors had addressed with its full name, including a name she said did not use publicly for decades.
The person who sent the messages claimed she had Nancy Guthrie and demanded payment in Bitcoin for her release.
In an interview quoted by TV Insider, Coffindaffer said that one of the messages contained a photograph of Nancy Guthrie that seemed to be generated with artificial intelligence. The ex-agent did not respond to the senders and immediately forwarded the material to the FBI.
However, Coffindaffer believes that the messages she received were probably efforts of fraud and not real communication by persons responsible for the disappearance.
Doubt has been reinforced by similar cases. Lauren Serpa, a neighbor of Nancy Guthrie, also received a reward request in September, reports TV Insider. The Pima County Sheriff's Department announced on September 29th that a new message linked to the case had been analysed and considered unreliable.
Authorities have warned the public not to send money and provide personal information in response to such messages.
The occasion is especially complex because not every ransom requirement has been rejected. Reuters reported earlier that the FBI continues to address the disappearance as a ransom kidnapping case and that, while some messages have been identified as fraud attempts, other requests continue to be investigated as potentially authentic.
Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her home in the Cetaline Foothils area near Tucson in late January. Authorities believe she was kidnapped from the apartment.
In July, the Sheriff's Department released two messages sent immediately after the disappearance. CBS News reported that one initially demanded $4m in Bitcoin, while it contained specific details from Guthrie's home that had not been made public at the time.
So far, the person responsible for the kidnapping and joint investigation of local authorities and the FBI has not been publicly identified.
