TMZ Founder Gets Third Letter, Claims To Know Who Guthrie Kidnapper Is
As the search intensifies for Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, a new and unsettling development has emerged — one that underscores the increasingly complex and high-tech nature of modern criminal investigations.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin disclosed Wednesday morning that his newsroom received a third alleged communication tied to the disappearance, this time in the form of a ransom demand sent via email.
“An hour and a half ago, we got, kind of a bizarre letter, an email from somebody who says they know who the kidnapper is and that they have tried reaching Savannah’s sister Annie and Savannah’s brother, to no avail. And they said they want one Bitcoin sent to a Bitcoin address that we have confirmed is active. It’s a real Bitcoin address, and as they put it, time is more than relevant. So we have no idea whether this is real or not. But they are making a demand,” Levin said during an interview on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom.”
Levin further revealed that the email included both a name and an address, though the credibility of the message remains uncertain.
According to Levin, federal authorities are working under the assumption that Nancy Guthrie’s alleged abductor may be local to southern Arizona.
“Law enforcement has told me they are operating under the theory that this person lives in the Tucson television area, and that’s why they’ve had so much contact with the local television stations there,” Levin said, referencing earlier ransom-style notes reportedly sent to regional outlets.
Levin also suggested that whoever authored the original communication demonstrated technical sophistication.
“Reading that first note, I think it is intelligent person. I think it is a tech-savvy person because we were on the phone with the FBI a couple of hours after we got the letter and everybody was trying, including my IT team, trying to figure out something about who sent it, and we hit a dead end,” he added.
Former FBI agent Jason Pack echoed the expectation that law enforcement activity will escalate following the release of surveillance images showing a masked individual connected to the case.
“I think you’re going to see more of these leads and you’re going to see more law enforcement activity. You’re going to see people out knocking on the doors,” Pack said on “Fox & Friends First.”
“Now that they have a photograph, they’re going to go back to these places they’ve already canvassed. They’re going to show the people the photograph. They’re going to show the backpack. They’re going to show the holster. They’re going to show all these articles of clothing and they’re going to try to hit the streets and get more leads,” Pack continued.
“Bring those back, put them on the timeline, and see where to go from there. I think we’ll have more activity today,” Pack added.
Cybersecurity expert Theresa Payton, who previously served as White House Chief Information Officer, indicated that artificial intelligence is likely playing a significant role behind the scenes as federal investigators analyze the released footage.
“I’m assuming that some of the best trained investigators in our country are on this project using AI to enhance what would normally take them a longer time to do,” Payton said.
Under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, the Bureau has confirmed it is actively evaluating multiple persons of interest. Patel told “Hannity” on Tuesday that agents are pursuing several leads simultaneously in the effort to locate Nancy Guthrie.
Payton emphasized the strategic value of discretion during such investigations.
“If you have multiple people of interest that you are interviewing and talking to, which they may have and they are just not telling the public, again, you want the abductors to let their guard down so you can find Nancy,” Payton added. “They can start using AI to match up the eyes, so we have the eyes, the eyebrows, you can use AI to ask questions about what are the probabilities that these faces actually could be a good match, what are the probabilities that this person is wearing layers of clothing and they are not this bulky, what are the probabilities that they are taller than they seem to be and what do they weigh.”
She also outlined how advanced data analysis tools can dramatically expand investigative reach.
“So there is a lot of things AI can be doing to aid this investigation, including doing reverse image lookups of the backpack, of the clothing being worn, of the boots themselves, maybe those things have been spotted on other surveillance videos,” she also said. “So they can use it to sort through and look through matches through massive amounts of data.”
As President Donald J. Trump’s administration continues prioritizing law enforcement resources and technological modernization across federal agencies, this case illustrates both the evolving nature of criminal threats and the growing importance of digital intelligence capabilities in protecting American families.
Authorities have not confirmed the authenticity of the latest Bitcoin demand, and the investigation remains ongoing.