Ransom note claims Nancy Guthrie is dead, US media reports

Tue 23 Jun 2026 at 12:13pm

Tue 23 Jun 2026 at 12:13pm

In short:

A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC's Today show host Savannah Guthrie, claims she has died.

Authorities believe the 84-year-old was kidnapped or otherwise taken against her will, after blood was found near the doorstep of her Tucson home.

Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain to no avail.

A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of NBC's Today show host Savannah Guthrie, says the 84-year-old has died, according to CNN and other news organisations citing law enforcement sources.

Some media outlets previously reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case in the days after Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home just outside Tucson in early February.

CNN reported on Monday, local time, that one of the notes claimed that Nancy Guthrie was dead, and those who kidnapped her had not meant to kill her, but she died shortly after her disappearance.

CNN said it knew the contents of one such note, and that a Tucson TV station had received two notes.

CNN and the station agreed to hold off on sharing the contents of the notes publicly so any future communications with the kidnapper or kidnappers could be authenticated, CNN reported.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department declined to comment on the note's contents.

The FBI did not respond to a request from AP for comment.

The Guthrie family did not make any immediate social media posts or any public comments about the notes on Monday.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped or otherwise taken against her will, after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson.

The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.

Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain, which is filled with cacti, bushes and boulders, in the weeks after she vanished.

A volunteer group recently conducted a search for her body near the Arizona-Mexico border but did not report finding her.

AP