{"id":26554,"date":"2026-08-03T22:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26554"},"modified":"2026-08-03T22:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:18:24","slug":"the-sheriff-in-the-nancy-guthrie-case-said-he-didnt-have-a-note-indicating-she-was-dead-but-he-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26554","title":{"rendered":"The sheriff in the Nancy Guthrie case said he didn&#8217;t have a note indicating she was dead. But he did."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>When investigators in the Arizona <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/timeline-nancy-guthrie-disappearance-as-search-intensifies\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">disappearance of Nancy Guthrie<\/a><\/span>, the mother of &#8220;Today&#8221; show co-host Savannah Guthrie, released <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/nancy-guthrie-ransom-notes-released\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">two ransom notes<\/a><\/span> Friday, one of the messages directly contradicted what Pima County Sheriff <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/nancy-guthrie-hair-sample-inconclusive-search-6-months\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Chris Nanos<\/a><\/span> told CBS News in an interview one day earlier.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have nothing to indicate she&#8217;s dead,&#8221; Nanos said Thursday. &#8220;I don&#8217;t have a body. I don&#8217;t have a burial site. I don&#8217;t have any note.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But he did have a note. On Friday, Nanos <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PimaSheriff\/status\/2083266827707363582\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released<\/a> the two notes to the public for the first time. The messages had originally been sent to the local CBS station in Tucson in February, shortly after the 84-year-old&#8217;s abduction.<\/p>\n<p>Nanos said he released the ransom notes hoping someone would recognize the author&#8217;s potentially distinctive wording and help identify who sent them.<\/p>\n<p>The first, submitted a day after Guthrie was reported missing, opened with &#8220;Hello Savannah, we have your mother,&#8221; demanded a $4 million ransom be paid in bitcoin, and promised to return her to a &#8220;safe drop off location&#8221; in Tucson within 12 hours of the ransom&#8217;s deposit.<\/p>\n<p>The second note, sent just four days later, says, &#8220;We never intended to hurt her, that was not our intention. She perished shortly after she was taken. We believe it was heart related. She is buried in nature now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The first note included details about Nancy Guthrie&#8217;s white Apple Watch and the floodlights on her back porch, leading the FBI to take them seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Both notes were sent via a tip line to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kold.com\/2026\/02\/03\/signs-forced-entry-found-arizona-home-today-show-host-savannah-guthries-mother\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CBS affiliate KOLD-TV<\/a> using email addresses that appeared to be made up and used references to the Guthrie family.<\/p>\n<p>CBS News has <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/fbi-nancy-guthrie-ransom-notes-legitimacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">previously reported<\/a><\/span> that investigators believed both notes were sent from the same IP address. That address was masked and investigators don&#8217;t know whose computer it was sent from.<\/p>\n<p>Lance Leising, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, told CBS News that releasing the notes to drive more tips from the public was a great thing to do.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, so late in the case and after a period of time where they have had no communication with the public, it just seems that the media strategy here is a little haphazard,&#8221; Leising said.<\/p>\n<p>Leising said the months-delayed release could be due to questions of authenticity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure, and maybe even to this day, they&#8217;re not 100% sure if these notes are legitimate,&#8221; Leising said. &#8220;I mean, they&#8217;ve already arrested and charged people for sending hoax and fake notes in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jason Pack, another retired FBI supervisory special agent, noted that the second message dropped the ransom demand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The money is simply gone,&#8221; Pack told CBS News on Friday. &#8220;No demand. No offer to sell a location. Nothing. People motivated by money do not walk away from $4 million when the plan falls apart. They try to salvage something. This writer asked for nothing at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pack believes one person wrote both notes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Same channel, same habits, same distance from responsibility,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Whether that person took Nancy or watched the coverage and decided to insert himself is the open question.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When CBS News asked Nanos about the messages, he said, &#8220;Those hostage notes: Are they valid, do we believe they&#8217;re valid? We think every one of them&#8217;s valid until we show otherwise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an Instagram post Saturday marking six months since her mother&#8217;s disappearance, <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/savannah-guthrie-nancy-missing-mom-ransom-notes\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Savannah Guthrie again urged<\/a><\/span> &#8220;someone to come forward,&#8221; including anyone who might recognize the writing in the ransom notes. She said, &#8220;There is a way to end this situation and do the right thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Following a lengthy, and at times unflattering, account in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/us-news\/how-savannah-guthrie-lost-mother-nancy-28907a65?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wall Street Journal<\/a> over the weekend of how local investigators handled the Guthrie investigation, Nanos <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/38wFJpHrfQQ?si=bSWy1u4XIXD_UdRZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">took to social media<\/a> to address the Guthrie family and concerned citizens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re still here, we&#8217;re not going away,&#8221; Nanos said. &#8220;If you could just see the team working, you would see the energy, the concern. They&#8217;re fired up, and we&#8217;ll continue to work this case hard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nanos said he has no doubt the case will be solved.<\/p>\n<p>As the search for Nancy Guthrie continues, the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to her location or the arrest of anyone involved in her disappearance, and the Guthrie family has <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/nancy-guthrie-family-reward-1-million\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">offered a reward<\/a><\/span> of $1 million.<\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n<p class=\"content__meta--contributors\">\n<p>                                  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/team\/pat-milton\/\" class=\"byline__author__link\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Pat  Milton<\/a><\/p>\n<p>        contributed to this report.\n    <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p>  <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation  \">\n        <\/aside>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n      <!-- tags --><\/p>\n<section class=\"content__tags\">\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When investigators in the Arizona disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of &#8220;Today&#8221; show co-host Savannah Guthrie, released two ransom notes Friday, one of the messages directly contradicted what Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News in an interview one day earlier. &#8220;I have nothing to indicate she&#8217;s dead,&#8221; Nanos said Thursday. &#8220;I don&#8217;t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/07\/31\/d73f216e-5485-43fd-8b49-fe88fb556419\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/42c077d8d4b62e3d3a3fe80ff6415979\/screenshot-2026-07-31-at-7-33-54-am.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}