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A new ransom note claims to know where Nancy Guthrie's body is was obtained by TMZ on Monday (April 6), the same day her daughter, Savannah, returned to the TODAY Show anchor desk.
Two notes were sent by the same mystery person who had previously demanded one bitcoin in exchange for information regarding Guthrie after her February 1 disappearance.
“We got another letter today from this person, an email saying, ‘I know where her body is, and who the kidnapper is, give me half a bitcoin and I’ll tell you,'” TMZ founder Harvey Levin said on Monday, adding that one of the notes claimed "she is dead."
A second note came in to the gossip outlet claiming “I saw her alive with them in the state of Sonora Mexico.” TMZ confirmed that it had alerted the FBI about the two notes. The person vowed to surrender the information for half a bitcoin with another transferred to their wallet when a public arrest is made.
Levin claimed that the sender was "persistent" despite potentially being charged with a hoax by law enforcement, who had previously "disregarded" them "as a scam."
“It’s unbelievable that millions have been wasted and yet here I am willing to deliver them on a silver platter since the 11th of February for a bitcoin but I am disregarded as a scam … they are free and the case is frozen but the ego’s remain hot when it comes to me,” the first letter reportedly states.
Savannah made her official return to the TODAY Show during Monday's live broadcast.
"We are so glad you started your week with us, and it is good to be home," Guthrie said at the beginning of the show's live broadcast.
"Yes, it is good to have you at home," said co-anchor Craig Melvin as he patted her hand.
Guthrie then introduced the opening segment on the war in Iran, stating, "Here we go, ready or not — let’s do the news." The veteran broadcaster had previously appeared in a three-part interview with longtime former co-anchor Hoda Kotb, having otherwise been absent from the TODAY Show since her mother was reported missing on February 1.
"I just love this beautiful place that we call home, where we get to come and be every day," she said of the TODAY Show to Kotb, who had temporarily returned to the program in her absence. "I just wanted to be with my family. They're my family too."
"I don't know how to come back and I don't know how not to come back," Savannah added, though acknowledging that she still believes it's "part of my purpose."
"I don't know if i can do it … but I would like to try," she continued. "I’m not going to be the same, but maybe it’s like that old poem: ‘More beautiful in the broken places.'”
Guthrie had previously said it's unbearable to think that her mother's kidnapping may have been because of her own high-profile name.
“I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought ‘that girl has money, we could make a quick buck.’ That would make sense,” she added.
The full interview will air in two parts on Thursday and Friday (March 27) and serves as Savannah's first since her mom was reported missing on February 1, which is suspected to be part of a kidnapping based on eerie surveillance footage showing a masked man loitering on Nancy's doorstep. Savannah said she was notified of her mother's disappearance by her sister, Annie, after Nancy hadn't shown up for church.
“My sister called me and I said ‘Is everything OK?’ And she said ‘no, she said ‘mom’s missing,’” Savannah said.
Nancy was initially suspected to have suffered a medial emergency in the middle of the night.
“The back doors were propped open, you know, and that didn’t make any sense,” Savannah revealed. “We thought maybe they came and there was a stretcher, and they took her out the back … But her phone was there, and her purse was there, and all her things — and it just didn’t make any sense.”
The family realized something was "very wrong" when they found blood spatters on Nancy's porch and the doorbell camera yanked off, backing fears of a potential kidnapping for ransom.
“I mean, it’s just absolutely terrifying,” Guthrie said of the surveillance of the apparent kidnapper.
“I can’t imagine that that is who [her mom] saw standing over her bed,” she added. “It’s too much.”
Savannah also said that her family suspects only two of the random demands they received were actually sent by the kidnapper.
“There are a lot of different notes, I think that came and I think most of them … are not real and I didn’t see them,” she said.
“But, you know, a person that would send a fake ransom note … it really has to look deeply at themselves. Yeah. To a family in pain,” Savannah added.
There are no suspects identified in Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping, through the FBI had released doorbell camera footage of an armed and masked man outside her home on the morning she was reported missing. The bureau described the man in the footage as being 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches with an average build.