CRUEL MESSAGES

Man Admits Sending Sick Fake Ransom Note to Savannah Guthrie’s Family

The Los Angeles man sent two text messages and called the family shortly after the abduction.

A Los Angeles man has admitted sending a fake ransom note to the family of Savannah Guthrie’s abducted mother. Derrick Callella, 42, sent text messages to the family of Nancy Guthrie, 84, demanding a bitcoin ransom in the days after she went missing from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 1. The incident came after Today show host Savannah Guthrie and her siblings made a desperate public plea for their mother’s safe return in early February. Nancy’s daughter, Annie Guthrie, and her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, received a text that read: “Did you get the bitcoin we’re [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction.” Investigators traced the phone number and IP address associated with the message to Callella’s residence and email account, leading to his arrest. Callella will be sentenced on Sept. 10 and faces a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, or both. The guilty plea comes the same week that claims emerged that none of the ransom notes sent to the family were genuine, with the FBI’s Phoenix office pushing back, saying that while “some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy,” others remain under investigation as potentially “legitimate.”