Savannah Guthrie’s emotional plea reveals desperation over her mother Nancy’s 2024 abduction, with no proof of life despite a Bitcoin ransom demand. Legal analyst Greg Jarrett notes law enforcement’s struggles—encrypted threats, 41 cell towers near the desert site, and deepfake risks—while speculating about undisclosed messages. Nancy Grace criticizes experts dismissing ransom payments, pushing for loans or crowdfunding, and highlights invasive searches of Nancy’s home, including UFED scans and septic tank investigations. The case’s bizarre focus on an 84-year-old woman underscores how fame and vulnerability collide, forcing families to gamble with ransoms while authorities race against time. [Automatically generated summary]
If you want to be a part of the program, just moments ago, Savannah Guthrie on her own put out a new statement.
And we're going to play this as specially in relation to what she put out this weekend.
And here is what she said moments ago.
Hi there, everybody.
I wanted to come on and just share a few thoughts as we enter into another week of this nightmare.
I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for all of the prayers and the love that we have felt, my sister and brother and I, and that our mom has felt.
Because we believe that somehow, some way, she is feeling these prayers and that God is lifting her even in this moment and in this darkest place.
We believe our mom is still out there.
We need your help.
Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find her.
She was taken and we don't know where.
And we need your help.
So I'm coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even if you're far from Tucson, if you see anything, you hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement.
We are at an hour of desperation, and we need your help.
And we need your help.
Obviously, a plea for desperation now about three hours away from what was what Harvey Levin told us from TMZ was a far more consequential second deadline.
And we're less than three hours away from that now, local time, 7 o'clock Eastern Time.
Fox News legal analyst Greg Jarrett, for years you may not remember, may recall that he worked for Court TV.
You spent a lot of time analyzing a lot of different cases.
What I hear in that message is just desperation, frustration, but also a belief that their mom is still out there.
Yeah, I hear that too.
She described it as a nightmare, and it is surely that the darkest place, she said, and approaching the hour of desperation.
Today's a pivotal day.
And, you know, Sean, this is, I think, a frantic race against the clock to save the life of Nancy Guthrie.
And we have this, you know, 5 p.m. deadline fast approaching.
The FBI and an army of people hoping to find her before the ransom ultimatum has to be paid.
And, you know, the family has said it will pay the Bitcoin demand for her safe return.
But there's no way of knowing if the suspected kidnappers can be trusted to keep their word.
And that's why you hear such torment and agony in the voice of Savannah Guthrie.
And I'm sure what troubles her deeply is the failure to provide some proof of life, at least in a conventional sense, which would be perhaps a photograph, an audio, a video, something.
And, you know, that raises troubling questions.
Why won't they do that?
you know is this for sure but clear operating on that And I'm certain that the FBI has been working around the clock, hundreds and hundreds of agents and experts trying to uncover this well-disguised digital footprint left behind in the various email demands sent to the media outlet.
But these people used a secure encrypted server.
They concealed the sender's location.
They hid the IP address.
That makes it difficult to penetrate.
And sadly, others have created deep fakes, which have only made the challenge even harder for the FBI.
The Bitcoin account, that's another avenue for tracking, but that one's difficult as well.
And meanwhile, the clock is ticking down, and law enforcement is, I think, pursuing every conceivable avenue, even the old-fashioned traditional shoe leather methods of searching for evidence at or near the scene and probably elsewhere, Sean.
Well, I found this message to be very, very different because I've also looked at it.
She's not on script.
This seems to be just a heartfelt thank you to everybody and a plea to everybody to, you know, please help that they're at an hour of desperation, to use her words.
It also seems that she believes that her mother is alive, that she was taken.
We don't know where.
We need your help.
I'm coming to ask not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even if you're far from Tucson, if you see or hear anything, if there is anything at all that seems strange to you, please report it to law enforcement, which is a little bit different than maybe the cryptic message that I felt, which would be very normal, by the way.
I don't want this to be misinterpreted, seemed to be very scripted, on message, coordinated with law enforcement.
And this is the one that said that we will pay.
We received your message.
We understand.
We beg you now to return our mother to us so we can celebrate with her.
The words with her gave me some hope.
When I heard celebrate immediately the first time, I listened to it many times.
I said, uh-oh, that sounded like maybe she had information that maybe she thought that this would be a celebration of life, but she said with her.
This is the only way we will have peace.
That seemed cryptic to me.
This is very valuable to us, not in a way that a communicator like Savannah Guthrie would, I think, normally speak, and we will pay.
That's how it ends.
Let me play it for you.
We received your message, and we understand.
We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.
This is the only way we will have peace.
This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.
Now, I've had a million people interpret that a million different ways.
I just prefer to focus on the idea that she's still alive.
And, you know, with the deadline now approaching the second deadline that Harvey Levin described as far more consequential, meaning dire, that I think this last message is like, okay, we're not getting anywhere, even with the willingness to pay.
What are your thoughts?
What do you think the next best step for them would be?
Well, it is terribly frustrating and heartbreaking to hear this most recent message.
It's a message of desperation as we get close to that important hour.
And so, you know, Savannah is saying, please, if you see anything, you hear anything, let law enforcement know about it, which sort of suggests, obviously, that law enforcement is no closer to solving this case than they were perhaps from the beginning.
Examining Cell Phone Activity00:05:46
You know, which I find bewildering because the FBI is so adept, as you and I have discussed, at using the most advanced technology, system analytics, even AI-assisted crime analysis.
And, you know, it's multifaceted.
In addition to trying to sort of penetrate the demand notes, they've also been examining all the cell phone activity connected to the 41 towers in a three-mile radius.
It may have been that the culprits did not bring mobile phones with them.
Maybe they had burner phones.
And I'm sure the FBI has been scouring all those street camera footage and surveillance to try to trace vehicles between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. when Nancy is believed to have been abducted.
There are licensed plate readers, dozens of them, in that general area.
But as I discussed before with you, you know, smart criminals often steal plates.
And so all you can really get are make models and colors.
The difficulty here is exacerbated by the remoteness of that neighborhood in a very secluded region, the houses set back, blocked by desert foliage, no street lights.
So that makes it so hard for anybody that night to have seen or heard anything in the darkness of the night.
Let me ask a hard question, and it's not hard for me.
Michael Harrigan, who oversaw the FBI National Academy, says the proof of life is everything.
But if there's no two-way here, which there's not, obviously, no good comes from sending the money.
They said we will pay.
With the deadline, the second deadline now approaching, it sounds like they are going to do that.
And I don't know what that means or what you can expect from that.
Well, it's frustrating, excuse me, when you have no direct communication.
And it is highly unusual.
I mean, I've never heard of it.
Usually there's some sort of back and forth.
There is some communication established so you can work out the details of the exchange, money for the human life.
But here there's none of that.
It's just demands sent via emails to the media.
And so, I mean, I suppose that the suspected kidnappers are, you know, examining the Bitcoin account, waiting for the money to arrive.
And maybe it has, maybe it will be in the next couple of hours.
You know, we don't know.
Savannah said, we will pay.
So it is truly a very different, bizarre, odd, mysterious way of, you know, kidnapping and demand for ransom.
But it has apparently befuddled the best in law enforcement so far.
It really has, and it's, I'm sure, frustrating for them.
I don't really think there's an option.
I think that you just, you know, as this deadline fast approaches, if anybody puts themselves in her shoes, I think paying is probably the right call.
What are your thoughts?
Oh, I absolutely agree.
You know, you would pay the money to get your loved one back, any amount of money.
And so, you know, I think that's the only choice here.
Pay the money and then wait and hope and pray that, you know, the safe return of Nancy Guthrie is imminent.
But that is another challenge for the kidnappers.
You know, how do they do that without getting caught?
You know, do you leave her in a remote area, then send a message to a media outlet as to where she is?
You know, you don't want to...
It's kind of mind-numbing with all the technology we have and all the cameras that are everywhere that nothing has popped that we know of.
And I assume we don't know everything that law enforcement is doing.
Yeah, we don't know what they have.
And I am sure that they are pursuing possible leads.
Some of them result in a dead end.
We hope they have one that comes to fruition and can bring her back.
But, you know, I think I would never fault the FBI.
I think they've done their level best.
You know, President Trump was on this telling everybody in the federal government it's all hands on deck.
Everybody needs to contribute, and I'm sure they have been.
But, you know, it's one of those exceedingly difficult cases.
Looking For Clues00:15:04
Well, we appreciate you taking time with us, Greg Jarrett.
We'll get people's reaction to this as well and all the other news of the day.
800-941-Sean is a toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of the program.
I-25 to the top of the hour, 800-941-Sean, our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
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All right, moments ago, Savannah Guthrie puts out, now remember, we are now less than two and a half hours away from what Harvey Levin described because he read the entire note as a far more consequential deadline of 5 o'clock Tucson time, which is 7 o'clock Eastern time tonight.
And that deadline is approaching.
And here it is about three hours before Savannah Guthrie put out a new message, unlike the message yesterday, which we'll compare it to.
It seemed like she was looking straight at the camera, speaking straight from her heart extemporaneously.
Here's what she said.
Hi there, everybody.
I wanted to come on and just share a few thoughts as we enter into another week of this nightmare.
I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for all of the prayers and the love that we have felt, my sister and brother and I, and that our mom has felt.
Because we believe that somehow, some way, she is feeling these prayers and that God is lifting her even in this moment and in this darkest place.
We believe our mom is still out there.
We need your help.
Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock trying to bring her home, trying to find her.
She was taken and we don't know where.
And we need your help.
So I'm coming on just to ask you, not just for your prayers, but no matter where you are, even if you're far from Tucson, if you see anything, you hear anything, if there's anything at all that seems strange to you, that you report to law enforcement.
We are at an hour of desperation, and we need your help.
Multiple times saying we need your help.
It's an hour of desperation as we now approach this more consequential deadline.
Yes, the message that came out this weekend was far more cryptic to me, more scripted, which probably was coordinated with law enforcement.
We'll get Nancy Grace's take on it in a second.
Here's what she said this weekend.
We received your message and we understand.
We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her.
This is the only way we will have peace.
This is very valuable to us and we will pay.
All right, Nancy Grace joins us now, of course, with Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius, also Fox Nation.
A very different message today, but we're now approaching that consequential deadline.
Well, Sean, I didn't know that it could be more heartbreaking until we hear Savannah State.
We are at an hour of desperation.
And for anyone that's ever been in a position where you feel you are about to lose something you love the most in the world, and not being able to do anything about it, to be totally at the mercy of someone you don't know that has picked you out of millions of people to torture and take your mother.
It's just to hear her voice, it's excruciating.
Which leads me to something you asked me earlier today.
Do I think there has been another message in addition to the two ransom-related messages sent through media?
I think that now it's very possible.
Does this mean they haven't heard anything?
They have no reason to hope they'll get their mom back.
They're begging the public, us, to help.
You see, and I've had so many friends contact me over the weekend, and I contacted you because there's nobody better at figuring this out or anyone that has more experience.
But we received your message.
We understand.
It sounded like the impossible other message was sent.
That's how I interpreted it.
And then I got nervous when I heard the word celebrate.
I'm thinking, all right, does she talking about a celebration of life?
And then I wrote you, I said, but the key words after were celebrate with her.
And then it sounds a little more cryptic.
This is the only way we will have peace.
This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.
I think you agree with me that that likely was written in coordination with law enforcement, right?
Well, I know Savannah, and Savannah can add lib off the top of her head.
She couldn't do her job on the Today Show if she couldn't roll with the punches because you don't know what the guest might say.
It's not all scripted.
But I saw her.
I was watching her, and she made a statement, and then she looked down and paused, and she was looking at a script.
It was scripted.
Not necessarily this one where she's begging for our help, but where she was saying, we will pay.
And you're right.
When I heard celebrate, I first saw it celebration of life and my stomach just clinched because I thought she believes her mom is dead.
But you're right.
You caught it.
Celebrate with her as if they're going to celebrate a homecoming.
But this very last message from Savannah in her hour of desperation, as she puts it, tells me that they don't have any hope right now.
You know, I was thinking all along, Sean, maybe they are onto something and they're not letting it onto us.
Maybe they have an idea, have a bean on a potential suspect.
But this suggests they are truly at the end of their rope.
They got nothing.
That's what I'm taking out of it.
And here's what else stands out to me.
And I always assumed that there was a pathway to payment.
And we will pay.
This is very valuable to us.
We will pay.
And then couple that with today's message.
And I'm thinking they might not have been given instructions on how to pay.
Except maybe I heard there was a Bitcoin, they wanted to be paid in Bitcoin, but does that mean they gave an account?
Well, according to Levin, he checked the account and the account was verified.
It's a real account.
Now, as of a couple of hours ago, Levin states that no money has been put into that account.
But I was looking at certain words she said in her next to the last message, beg, celebrate, peace, valuable, understand.
Those are embedded commands.
It's what negotiators call words that Savannah stressed.
Beg, celebrate, peace, valuable.
And it's almost as if she had been asked, do you understand?
And she said, we understand.
That, to me, is an answer to a question.
That's what makes us think that there might have been another note that nobody knows about.
So if you're in this situation, now it is interesting because I guess there's different points of view.
There is, for example, Michael Harrington, who oversaw the FBI National Academy, says proof of life is everything.
If there's no two-way back and forth or no way to communicate with this individual, assuming there's an individual or individuals, no good comes from sending the money.
I don't really think that's going to be an option for them.
And she said as much that we will pay.
Well, I mean, Sean, could you sit back and think, well, I didn't get the proof of life I wanted.
I'm not sending the money.
And then regret it for the rest of your life?
I couldn't live with myself.
No, no.
The grandma's house is worth a million dollars.
Pocket.
Get a loan.
Get the money.
Do a GoFundMe.
Do whatever you've got to do.
And if you lose the money, you lose the money.
But you cannot take a chance with your mother's life.
And I'm telling you, Sean, we keep hearing from these so-called experts.
Well, there hasn't been proof of life.
We don't know what was in those missives.
We don't know everything.
It doesn't have to be a picture or a video, which can easily be manipulated.
It could be something that only the mom knows, that nobody else knows.
Like her childhood name.
Who knew the Queen of England was saying Lilith until, you know, just a few years ago?
Nobody knows secret names, pets names, home phone number that used to be on your childhood, anything.
It doesn't have to be a video.
It doesn't have to be a picture.
They could have gotten information in one of those notes that revealed they have Mrs. Guthrie.
And they're certainly seeming to take them seriously.
So all of those so-called experts that are poo-pooing the idea of sending the money, let's see what you would do in the same situation.
I hate when people, you know, make judgments about what other people would do in a circumstance like this.
It drives me crazy.
Why do you think law enforcement keeps returning to this home?
And they took a car away and then a report that they were spotted Sunday afternoon yesterday searching a septic tank behind the house and putting long poles into the septic tank.
What do you make of that?
Well, there's two ways to look at it.
One, they got information, a tip or some other information that they should go check the septic tank.
And again, for city folks that are on so-called city water and city septic, you don't have a septic tank.
Country people or people out in the desert, in this case, they have a septic tank.
In my last home, I had a septic tank.
It overflowed.
It was not pleasant.
Not pleasant at all.
So it could have been a matter of they're talking and they go, wait, does she have a septic tank?
We better go check it.
And if you look at the instrument they were using, they weren't just poking around with a stick.
According to an expert that I spoke with at Specialty is finding missing people, there was another device and they were looking down in there with a light and potentially a camera.
I think, of course, they were looking for a body, of course, but, because the manhole used was big enough to put a body into.
But there had already been out scent dogs and cadaver dogs, we've been told.
So a cadaver dog would have led straight to that.
So I think they were looking for something that may have been flushed down the commode.
Think about a knife.
Think about something that it may be difficult, but that is flushable.
Something that was carried out to the septic tank and dropped in there.
It could be any number of things that I think they were crossing their T's and dotting their I's.
I don't think they thought they were going to find Nancy Guthrie at a septic tank.
But also concerning is the search of the sister, Savannah's sister, Annie's home, because they were there late at night.
They didn't leave till nearly 11 o'clock.
And they were viewed by media, taking pictures with flash photography throughout the house, from the garage to the other end of the house.
They left again, we think, with a Celebrite, which is a UFED that you and I talked about the other night on Fox, which downloads all digital information.
It can be deleted.
It can be encrypted.
It doesn't matter.
They'll get it.
Why were they back again at Annie's with Celebrite?
They also came out with paper bags, which we all know carry evidence.
If you carry a plastic bag and there's any moisture, it can degenerate the evidence.
Plastic can also remove fingerprints or even DNA.
So always paper.
They came out with paper bags.
What did they get?
Don't know, but they got something.
And one more thing before I lose my train of thought, Sean.
They've already been in the home, we believe, once with a Celebrite, a UFED.
What does that mean?
I'm deducing that did someone get a message such as you were suggesting on a phone, a text, and they have gone back in with the Celebrite to try to trace it.
I mean, it does make sense.
It makes a lot of sense.
What doesn't make sense is an 84-year-old woman being taken like this.
That just does not make sense.
And as far as the septic tank, it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't fit the trail of blood leading out of the house or what we learned in the very beginning of all of this.
It's just frustrating.
Why Every Life Matters00:00:58
One of the things that, you know, a lot of people have raised the question, why has there's been so much attention?
I'll tell you why there's a lot of attention.
Number one, she's famous.
Number two, you can't believe this would happen.
But it also, to me, it highlights something that's always been very important to me, which is that every life matters.
You know, that's why I've spent 20 years scrolling names that nobody's ever heard of, of people shot and shot and killed in cities like New York City or Chicago.
And just to make a point that, you know, we can save lives.
We can ensure law and order and safety and security for every person and that every life does matter.
And it is a gift from God.
And we ought to put a very high value on all of it.
You're amazing.
You're so generous with your time.
We really appreciate it.
We'll know a lot more when you're on the air tonight, I assume, with us on Hannity.