A new possible ransom note is being investigated following the abduction of Nancy Guthrie.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which covers the Tucson, Arizona, area, said Monday that it and the FBI had been alerted to the possible note regarding the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.
Officers are now racing to figure out whether the new note is the real deal.
Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home outside Tucson on Feb. 1.
“The PCSD/FBI Guthrie Task Force was recently made aware of a new possible ransom note related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation,” the department said in a statement.
The statement added that “investigators are also aware of social media comments regarding the note and are looking further into the information to determine its credibility.”
What the note says, and how it reached investigators, remains a mystery. According to NewsNation, the department also did not say who received it or when it was sent.
In July, authorities made public two other ransom notes that were originally sent to a Tucson television station days after Guthrie disappeared.
The first, sent Feb. 2, claimed Guthrie was safe but scared and would be released unharmed once her captors received $4 million in cryptocurrency. The second, sent Feb. 6, delivered a far darker message: that Guthrie died shortly after she was kidnapped. Authorities have not said whether they believe she is still alive.
The FBI has previously said not every note that has come in is worth taking seriously. “Some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy,” the bureau said in a statement. “Other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such.”
Nobody has been arrested. The investigation has been dogged by unanswered questions, including how many people are believed to have taken part in her abduction and whether she was taken by someone who knew her.
Investigators do have some images to work with. The FBI released surveillance videos of a masked person who authorities said appeared to tamper with a camera on Guthrie’s front porch and block it with a plant.
The Guthrie family has offered $1 million for information leading to her recovery, and the FBI is adding $100,000.
The family has made repeated public appeals, sharing pleas for information in videos posted to social media.
