FBI and local authorities assess credibility of new ransom demand in Nancy Guthrie disappearance.

Authorities in Pima County say a joint sheriff’s office and FBI task force is assessing the credibility of a newly reported ransom demand in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, who was last seen at her Tucson home on Jan. 31 and reported missing the next day. The claim that a family friend received a bitcoin demand saying Guthrie was alive in Mexico came from online commentator Jonathan Lee Riches, whom one report noted is not credentialed with a professional news outlet; investigators have not confirmed the claim. Guthrie is believed to have been abducted, and investigators have described a masked person seen near her home in security-camera images. Separately, retired FBI agent Steve Moore said a Savannah Guthrie segment filmed in Tucson and aired months before her mother vanished could be relevant to the case, while acknowledging that the timing may be coincidental; the reports do not establish that the segment played a role.
Sheriff Chris Nanos said Nancy Guthrie took an Uber to her daughter’s home for dinner at about 5:32 p.m. on Jan. 31, then returned home at approximately 9:48 p.m.; the garage door opened around then and closed about two minutes later.
Authorities’ timeline places the doorbell camera disconnection at about 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 1. Its software detected a person around 2:12 a.m., but investigators could not retrieve usable video from that event; Nancy’s pacemaker app disconnected from her phone around 2:28 a.m.
Nancy was reported missing after she did not arrive at a friend’s home to watch a virtual church service; family members had dropped her off at her Tucson home the previous evening.
The Today segment at the center of Steve Moore’s theory was filmed in Tucson on Oct. 17 and aired on Nov. 5. Moore suggested someone might have noticed Savannah Guthrie and her mother through the broadcast, while also acknowledging the timing could have been coincidental.
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