A veteran criminal profiler who has interviewed serial killers says the ransom notes tied to the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, do not match the behavior of the masked suspect caught on doorbell camera, and he does not believe the demands are genuine.
John Kelly, president of STALK Inc. and a criminal psychoanalyst, told Fox News Digital that the first and second notes appear to have been written by two different personalities, and that neither fits the profile of the person seen on video at Guthrie's front door in the early hours of February 1.
Nearly five months after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her home in the Catalina Foothills of Tucson, Arizona, she remains missing. No arrests have been announced in connection with the abduction itself. And the central question, whether the notes are real or the work of opportunists, remains officially unanswered by the FBI.
Kelly's analysis starts with a simple observation: the tone shifts dramatically between the two communications. The first note, sent to local media, demanded millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin and included a payment deadline. It contained crime scene details that were not widely known at the time. It did not include proof of life.
The second note, details of which became public more recently, took a sharply different turn. A federal law enforcement source close to the case told Fox News that it claimed Guthrie had died inadvertently after her abduction and was "buried with nature." It included what Kelly described as emotional language, an apology, a claim that her death was not "intentional."
Kelly sees a disconnect between those two communications and the man on camera.
"Bottom line is, I don't believe they're real. The first note is strictly about the dollars, about the bucks.... Now when you get into the second note, you're talking about a kind of a different personality to me."
The profiler argued that the suspect's on-camera demeanor, calm, deliberate, showing no visible anxiety, pointed to a psychopathic personality type. That kind of person, Kelly said, would not bother expressing remorse.
"Most of these guys are psycho, and going to do that, rouse an older woman out of her bed and haul her away like that bleeding all over the place... they're going to just want to get away from the problem as quick as possible. They're not going to be worried about leaving condolences."
He called the second note's language, its talk of unintended consequences and burial, inconsistent with the cold, efficient behavior on the video.
"This is a person to me that wouldn't know a feeling if they tripped over one."
The FBI recovered Nest doorbell camera footage with assistance from Google. It shows an unidentified male of average height and build, wearing a ski mask, long sleeves, and black gloves, carrying a black Ozark Trail backpack available at Walmart. Authorities said only a single suspect appears on the video. The individual appeared to tamper with the camera at Nancy Guthrie's front door.
Kelly said he studied the suspect's eyes in the available footage and saw no normal blinking, no signs of fear or anxiety.
"I was watching his eyes on the video that we could get to see, I mean, I wasn't seeing normal blinking taking place. I wasn't seeing anxiety. Psychopaths are like that, they can be as cool as cucumbers. They don't feel a whole lot of fear.... They just go about their business."
Blood was found at Nancy Guthrie's doorstep. National Review reported that retired bloodstain pattern analyst Paulette Sutton, who has more than 40 years of experience, described it as a "drip trail", "a continuous source of blood dripping from an object or from a person." The doorbell camera footage, recovered by the FBI, showed the masked individual with a backpack and what appeared to be a holstered weapon attempting to disable the camera at approximately 1:47 a.m. on February 1.
Savannah Guthrie has publicly stated that she believes at least two of the notes are authentic. In a March interview with former "Today" colleague Hoda Kotb, she acknowledged the volume of communications that arrived after her mother's disappearance, and drew a distinction between what she considered credible and what she dismissed.
"There are a lot of different notes, I think, that came, and I think most of them, it's my understanding, are not real, and I didn't see them.... But I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real."
Nancy Guthrie's adult children recorded a video response to the first ransom note alongside FBI Special Agent in Charge Heith Janke of the Phoenix field office. In that video, as Breitbart reported, Savannah Guthrie pleaded: "We love our mom, and we'll never stop looking for her, never."
She also made an emotional on-air appeal for public help, saying simply: "Somebody knows something."
Kelly's skepticism puts him at odds not only with the family but, reportedly, with investigators working the case. The New York Post reported that investigators close to the case now believe the ransom notes are genuine, tracing them to the same digital IP address, which they say indicates the same person or group sent both. That finding prompted a shift in the investigation's focus from kidnapping to possible homicide.
The first note demanded $4 million in Bitcoin for Nancy's safe return. The second made no payment demands but offered to return her body.
The Associated Press reported that CNN and Tucson TV station KOLD both received ransom notes but agreed to withhold their contents at law enforcement's request to help authenticate future communications with the kidnapper or kidnappers. KOLD news director Jessica Bobula said the station "notified authorities and has shared only what the FBI has released about the notes."
FBI Phoenix Division Special Agent in Charge Heath Yonke, identified elsewhere in coverage, stated: "We are aware of a ransom letter that was sent to the local media and then to national outlets. As with every lead, we are taking it seriously."
Authorities have not publicly confirmed or ruled out the authenticity of the ransom demands. They have also said they haven't ruled out the possibility that multiple plotters were involved in the abduction.
The investigation has already produced at least one confirmed fraud. National Review's timeline noted that authorities made one arrest for a fraudulent ransom demand, a detail that underscores just how difficult it has been to separate genuine communications from opportunistic ones in a high-profile case.
The Washington Examiner reported that the second note, sent via email from the same IP address as a prior verified note, included an apology from the kidnappers for Guthrie's accidental death. A retired FBI hostage negotiator, Jason Pack, told Breitbart that an apology in a ransom note is unusual, suggesting "something went wrong that was not part of the plan."
Nancy Guthrie was last seen at approximately 9:50 p.m. on January 31, 2026, after being dropped off at her home by her son-in-law. By the early hours of February 1, she was gone. On February 3, aerial drone shots captured her home. On February 23, Pima County deputies examined a flyer taped to the mailbox outside her residence. On March 5, FBI agents and law enforcement officers conducted a door-to-door search of her neighborhood.
A combined reward of more than $1.2 million has been posted for information that cracks the case. Tips can be submitted to 1-800-CALL-FBI or anonymously through Tucson's 88-Crime line at 1-520-882-7463.
The case sits in a painful limbo. A profiler says the notes don't match the suspect. Investigators reportedly believe they do. The family clings to the two they responded to. And the masked figure on the doorbell camera, calm, gloved, methodical, has not been identified.
Kelly's analysis is not an official finding. He is an outside expert offering a professional opinion based on publicly available material. But his core point deserves attention: the emotional language in the second note, the apology, the talk of unintended harm, the offer to return a body, does not square easily with the cold, unblinking figure caught on camera hauling an 84-year-old woman from her home in the middle of the night.
That gap matters. If the notes are genuine, the investigation moves toward homicide and recovery. If they are not, the FBI may be chasing a false trail while the real abductor stays silent.
Either way, an elderly woman was taken from her bed in a quiet Arizona neighborhood, and five months later, the people responsible remain free. The reward stands at $1.2 million. The doorbell camera footage is public. The masked man's identity is not.
When someone can abduct an 84-year-old woman from her own home and vanish without a trace for five months, the question isn't just who did it. It's what kind of country lets that question go unanswered this long.
