Nancy Guthrie: The Ransom Note That Targeted a Former FBI Agent

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1:03The kidnapping of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has taken another terrifying turn. For a month, we've followed the search, but now the people investigating and commenting on this case are also apparently being targeted by extortionists. Do they have anything to do with Nancy? Probably not. But they're out there and they know things. They probably shouldn't. We've heard about Nancy's friend Lauren Serpher receiving a ransom demand. We've heard about the ransom demands to TMZ, to K-GUN and other channels. But the chilling reality is this psychological terrorism is starting to hit much closer to home. Today, Jennifer Gaffin-Daffer. I'm Jennifer Gaffin-Daffer. Personally targeted by one of those fine ransom notes. We're going to walk through exactly what happened with her note, the disturbing details, the scammers, and how it changes the psychological landscape of this investigation. Jen, let's talk.

2:04It's going all the way back to April. We talked about this off the air back then, but you're talking about it now. Philis N. How did this come about? What was your first interaction with something or someone that seemed to be claiming that they had something about Nancy Guthrie that they wanted to give you if you gave them a little sums of... Yeah, you know, I'll never forget this happening. It was really bothersome. I was actually out of town. I started getting an email or I got an email to my personal email address that basically no one knows of personal... Yeah. ...personally. So that was odd. I opened it up and it addressed me by my full name, which I also haven't used for 30 years. Yeah. So that was kind of odd. It starts out with biblical verses and so on and so forth, essentially saying, we have Nancy, you can help and asking for Bitcoin and then giving a photograph.

3:11And so, you know, as an investigator, my first thing was to look at that photograph. What was the photograph of? It was an AI version of a shaved, dirty, obviously hurt Nancy. Okay. And so when that came through, it was apparently clear to me that it was AI, I believed. But I wanted to see where else I could find it. I thought, have they been doing this to anyone else? Where is this floating around? I couldn't find it anywhere. So I knew it was an original. And of course, you know, the first thing I did was contact the Bureau and I could receive several messages, not just one, emails. And I forwarded all of those to the Bureau. Of course, I spoke with an agent and they are investigating it, you know, as an extortion.

4:14So it specifically, these scammers that are likely out of the country and that are trying to get somebody to pay them a big point. And I believe the reason, and then I also spoke with people in the media, both mainstream media and some in social media off air. I didn't want anybody to know about it because I didn't. These things are not about the individuals, especially if you know they're being investigated, right? And I was afraid if I came out then, it would blow up as it has blown up. But it's important for it to blow up now because now a civilian, not in law enforcement ever has just been targeted. And then you have to wonder, are they going to target anyone else? So now it's about, you have to get it out there because people don't know about this. That this is not legitimate because so many people care about this case.

5:19And they may care so deeply that they may want to believe it and believe it and think they're doing something good. So it was important to come out at this point when I saw the picture she posted on Facebook. It was exactly the pictures that I had been sent. And so I knew it was the same person at that point. Contacted her, we compared Bitcoin address, same Bitcoin address, still same scammer targeting somebody who she's been very involved in the case, you know, living over there. And then me, I remember I was pushing hard for tickle the wire. Yes. And I think that that's why they thought, oh, maybe she'll tickle the wire this way. Yeah. How did you know it was AI? Was it obviously AI like right away when you looked at the photo? I mean, I know you forwarded on to the FBI and I'm sure they're looked at it as well. But like, can you tell us like what, what was the tip off to you that you knew that this was bogus?

6:24Well, I believed it was bogus first of all because it was in April. And that's too far outside of her possibly most likely being alive. And so for that reason, I believe it was most likely bogus. This followed how these extortionists work in terms of really trying to appeal to your, you know, they know I'm religious. They always stick with it to me. This wasn't just they, hey, let's get this to jet. No, they could have gone to have five emails. Most of that's easy to find. This one is not easy to find. And then the fact that they chose to use that name. Yeah. So it was very personal and it made me really realize that that group was out there doing their homework. And, you know, I'd be lying if I say it didn't bother me. It bothered me from the standpoint of I just want the bastards found because they shouldn't be doing that to anyone.

7:28And so, you know, that's where it is. And I sat on it all this time until I saw this picture as far as the picture Tony. It's funny because I ran it through I run everything through these AI programs because I want to be accurate. And it pointed out a lot of different things. But this is it's it's kind of good AI in the sense that it's nothing that would just be completely obvious. You know, she has a tear drop as an example running down her face. And it's just a little too clear and in congruency of the background. She was very dirty. Her hair was cut. It's a very disturbing image. It really is. And you can clearly see Nancy in it. To me, they took her image and they and they said do these things to her. Yeah. So it's just so disturbing.

8:28Is that a type of thing? I know it's sensitive. At the same time though, when it comes to AI generated images, I mean, no one knows your own family members as well as your own family members. I mean, I swim every morning and one of the women I swim with. Her one of her sons was actually doing this large open water swim. And he's about a large distance off shore in the open ocean with a 200 other people. And she could pick out which one her son was based on how he was swimming. So we're very, very good at picking up on these little nuances since we know these people so well. Was there ever consideration? I know it would have been really sensitive to actually run the photo past the Guthrie family themselves because they'd probably be able to pick out these little nuances. Even the fact is when you even mention a tear, we would know whether we have family members that actually are prone to even having tears or not in certain certain situations. So was that ever a consideration? I'm sure it was a consideration, but did you all do that at all? No, I literally only contacted the Bureau, talked to somebody at the Bureau of Sent them all the images, all the emails.

9:35So hopefully they would figure out who this is, what I'm concerned about. And I really think it is. I think it's somebody foreign. I think it's organized. I think it's a very good thing to have a lot of people in our home work. I can just picture these people all in a pod that have their little assignments and that keep after the people. They didn't keep after me because I never responded. And do you know how, again, I'm like you, that would have freaked the hell out of me too. Because when someone has that so much data on you, you're like, what the hell, where the hell they get that? Did you do a reverse engineer or did the Bureau do you know to figure out exactly where they got that data from and what databases they'd had access to to get that? Because again, the middle name is, they'd have to pay for something I'd imagine some sort of database or maybe not. I mean, were you able to figure it out? Yeah, I could find my middle name. Actually, it's really confusing. Like even, you can't really find it finitably my maiden name.

10:35You can't definitively find my middle name. I have a weird spelling of my middle name. And then also, I was adopted. So I have another birth certificate with three completely different names. So, you know, but reversing it, you could certainly see it out there. And you could have played with what the name was and they got it right. It was all in capitals, by the way. All three of my names. And I figured they did that just to make sure I would look at it. Right. And, but the thing I can't find is my email. That's crazy. And did they, they, they'll come back with any feedback on any progress on that? No, no, nothing beyond the initial conversations. Nothing. What were they asking for in the letter specifically? You said there's a Bitcoin address. Do they have a specific amount in mind that they're requesting?

11:37And what were they offering for said Bitcoin? Oh, yeah, they had a specific Bitcoin number. And if I would send that to them, that they would return Nancy. That we would set something up and Nancy would be returned. So, and, and I really believe. And I don't know. But I did reach out obviously to TMZ. I wanted to compare the Bitcoin address that they received on the two that I believe are legitimate. Because I think those first two are legitimate. So when I first got it, that was another thing I wanted to know right away. Is if those were congruent, they weren't. But as far as there, I call them the, you know, extortion 12 or whatever, the fake crap they got after that. I mean, it's hard to keep going on. Oh, I got another note. I got another note. I got another note. Now those, I need to circle back.

12:39I've never circled back. For me, I was just wanting to make sure it wasn't anything. The legit one, right? People ones. Yeah. But I need to now that I've decided to come out. And I think it was really important to come out for two reasons. One, the fact that they could be targeting other people. Now it's time to make some people aware. And then secondarily, and remember, I check to make sure other people, for instance, at News Nation that have been covering this case. You that's been covering the case, you know, other people to make sure that they weren't contacted or to see if they were. Nobody had been. And, but now. I mean, Brian Eddon, because he gets a lot, I imagine. Okay, that's good. Nobody has got one. So it was strange as far as I know. I think TMZ. I'm good. I need to check with them. But I think that's part of all those Harvey kept talking about. We'll see. And then obviously Lauren and myself. But other than that, you can't find these pictures out there.

13:40Yeah. Right. Nobody. Nobody got up. So it was clear that it was connected. You know, you're talking earlier about concern about them going after. And people outside of law enforcement with no background, no connection to that. And putting these demands out there for money. The Bitcoin amounts have been very high from what we've, you know, we've seen in the past. Millions of dollars, you know, it's not something that the average folks will be like, well, let's throw a million dollars that way and see what happens. I'm think I'm doing good. The dollar amount would need to be significantly lower. I'm wondering. I mean, have we ever seen anything like this where extortionists are going after the general government? The general public asking for Bitcoin or money to either reveal information about who they took or release them. Trying to tug on the heartstrings of a general public that's being, you know, affected by a national case or something of this magnitude.

14:41I mean, immediately you would think if somebody's like, I just need $500. Like that's BS. But it's also $500. It's a lot easier for someone who may not, you know, be the brightest in understanding what they're looking at but have a good heart to be like, oh, here's $500. Have we ever seen anything like this that you can think of? Well, I mean, yes, when Bitcoin and pointing this out with all the study I did on the wrench and wrench by proxy attacks. Yeah. This is what everybody's using. This is the new way that people that are taking people for ransom. This is what's being done. It's no longer leave, you know, $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 in a brown paper bag behind the supra. It's not that anymore. It is all about Bitcoin. And that's because it is very difficult to trace. So they have the Bitcoin address, obviously.

15:42They even sent, which I thought was interesting right when I first saw it, the, you know, the QR code. Yeah, they give you the QR code. Let's make this easy. Nice. Do they have a layaway plan as well? Yeah. You're second to go fund me. With Miss Sarpav, they kept reducing the amount that they were asking for. Right. Because I didn't engage at all. Yeah. I did not make it for three contacts. And that was it because I did not further engage. If I would have engaged it would have been this because that's there. They try to wear you down and try to further convince you. You know, it sounds like one of my GROK bots I have working beyond the scenes on stuff, you know, where, or the ones you get in, because I know we all get these things in where they are someone soliciting you for a service. presence here, or you want to show up in this news article, making a front page and it only costs this much. You know, like, I don't respond to weeks later.

16:42Oh, it's only going to cost this much. And then it's going to cost this much. And you can tell it's all AI, GROC botters, you know, bot generated. I wonder if they're using bots to do this. I do wonder. I mean, especially too, with your name being in all caps too, that's it made me wonder. It's like, oh, is it inserting it from a database over here? And there's just like thousands of these things going out. But we haven't heard. I mean, that's the thing. I would think we would have heard from a lot more people if there was a real concerted effort to approach hundreds or thousands of people with these sort of demands. As far as, you know, we can understand, there's been a handful of folks who've had this happen. Most have not even talked about it publicly. But it's not been a huge group. So I do wonder. I mean, Rob, or I wonder if, you know, is it, are they targeting folks? And it's going out and people are just very quickly going spam. And not even considering that this is from like a group like that. But your messages came to you very specifically. Where you weren't you texted as well, Janelle?

17:43Is that no? OK. I was only emailed. Only emailed. OK. OK. And what was really interesting, though, and this is why, and I need to check now, but that I think it's going to be perhaps that same group that was going after TMZ. Yeah. Remember when Harvey was reading about how angry they were that we're not these people, we're not the fakes. We actually know stuff. Right. That's what my message was saying. Right. That doesn't seem to be, you know, she's had so much interaction because she keeps interacting. So she's going to keep getting more and more interaction. Right. But in my, and the other thing was, and this is why I don't think it was a bot. They, you know, they chose very specific Bible verses. Yeah. And I thought that was very interesting

18:45if they've done any research at all on me. And that's what was a bot's do, man. Yeah, it's true. I can't say for sure. And then also that anger about, I am not these people. I'm legitimate. I know things. I can let you know we're an anteant. So. What an interesting and another interesting combination of what the hell kind of mentally, if this is a person that, that, that let's say actually does have some sort of extreme religious leaning, somehow squaring this up in their mind, throwing religiosity in there. And by the way, we'd like a lot of money to tell you where the dead woman is. I like somehow that makes sense. That seems like the Jesusy thing to do. It's a, I'll tell you, it's a scary time with what everyone's, I know everyone's up in arms about what AI is capable of and what it could do and, and, and, and, and, and, and, be afraid. And having AI targeting people for scams,

19:47that I think is the really the scariest one out there because that gets individualistic because, like you said, these bots go out there and they just scrub the dad scrub everything to do this kind of targeting. And again, who knows whether it was or wasn't, a bot on Jen, but either way, it's, that's some scary stuff because it doesn't take a lot to get these things in the background, just constantly doing these things. So, yeah. And so, with that, Jen, too, I'm also curious because I've been seeing you on X covering, you know, different aspects of Nancy and keeping it alive and great job doing that. Any progress anywhere in, with the share of Pima County, I mean, any of that is any traction going anywhere. Are we looking pretty dead? Well, I got, I got to tell you, and today I just did a show and I was thrilled because whenever, you know, we find a nugget, I get thrilled. So, one of the nuggets that was clear back and I can't remember the exit, I think I've done 180 episodes just on Nancy.

20:48So, but when we found the antenna from the HT that I believe is poking out of his pocket, that told me that there's somebody else there. There's an accomplice. And so, that was a huge moment. I did a big show on it. I pulled up all these Walmart and Tana's that are stubby like that. I also showed that it wasn't, you know, anything that was used to get rid of the signal. I showed those, what those look like and then what it does to your signal and that it would have also affected the pacemaker blah, blah, blah. This was one of those moments and it was a whole. We slowed it so far down on the one where he puts the foliage in front of the camera. We slowed it down as slow as it could go and looked framed by frame. It's so tedious. All these frames and we found a hole in the glove.

21:50Oh, really? Yeah, and I was thinking, it looks down to the skin and I was thinking, could they have DNA? Could they act, could there be blood from there, could there be sweat from there? I know since they didn't take the foliage and remember, they didn't take the foliage, right? Because they probably thought it blew up on there. Because they searched everything, they ended all their searches and then day 10, they get the video that shows how important that foliage is and they didn't take it or the mat. But just seeing that hole gave me some hope. Blood, sweat, skin cells, what other things? They took the foliage? What's that? They don't have the foliage? No, they left it and the mat. Don't give me started with the bite light in the smell. Brian Enten was up on the photographer with Brian was up on the porch like two days later, the next day because they released the scene too.

22:54As far as we know right now, they are still examining that DNA in the lab. Are they nuts? Jen, I know you're not a forensic DNA specialist. None of us here are. But why the hell does it take so long? I know it's not like, is it sitting in a queue? Is it, does it take so long for the, you know, like a photo to develop for something with the DNA and the cultures? I don't know. I don't know the answer to this question. Do you? Well, I think I do because I had the person who invented, if you will, IG, genetic genealogy, and it did very first test on it, even determine who the Titanic baby was. Okay. So I had her on. She's, you know, she's the grandmother of the hologram. And then I also had a man on who is amazing. He runs a whole center that does it.

23:54He works to try to get people, you know, freed, exonerated when they're not involved. This guy was a wealth of knowledge and so engaging. And I ask him just the questions. You're asking. And essentially, this is the problem. As Sheriff Nannos has said, these DNA samples have multiple profiles. Now, if it's two profiles, it'll take them a while but they can separate them. If it is three or more, they literally do not have the scientific knowledge to separate them. It's impossible right now. They're working on it, but it's possible. And that, I think, might be what we're looking at here. Pointing in Annos. That's what it says. So there's a lot of weight there. Yeah, DNA expert Tiffany Roy's read is the useful and five labs have touched these DNA samples at different stages. Coda search that does not hit the name is the first, is the fast part, but yeah, that's why it's taken so long.

24:54Also, because there's no public result has been named no suspect. Yeah. Well, here's where we're at. What do you want them to do next, Jen? What aren't they doing that you think they should be doing? Because I think you've been covering it closer to anyone else. I know the billboards. You still think they should switch the boards up. I'm still irritated with that. And they still have those billboards up though? I believe they do. I don't know that they don't. And anytime I bring it up, people are sending me pictures from like California. Or wherever I hear some of them with Nancy's face. But this is the thing that just really gals me and I don't understand it as an investigator. The first thing the case agent does when they get that license that's blurry, when they get the photo that's blurry, when they need something enhanced, we send it up to Quantico. We let these gurus take it and put color and put light and make sure that the images are correct, right? Because sometimes something light can be dark

25:55and these black and white images so forth. They've been enhanced. All three of those videos are promised you in screenshots taken. Why don't we get these? Yeah, what are they? That's the whole reason that the FBI started America's most wanted. That's why we put kids' face on milk cartons back in the day. That's why we run like this. And you don't give us the enhanced images. This is not complicated in some of these fronts. And it's mind-boggling to me. It feels like the people who are making the decisions are not investigators and don't seem to have that knowledge and they seem to think they know better is my guess. I don't know. Yeah, bureaucratic bullshit at the end of the day. Yours, yeah, yeah. Tony, really quick, it's like those cameras and we've talked about this on the roof. It's you don't know or appreciate or have made the mistake.

26:58I've always say I love it when I make mistakes because then I get to learn. If I already know it, I'm not gonna learn it. Those investigators leaving those cameras up there for days and days and days, even the bureau going there and then later going back because they've never had a case where the roof was important. That's when you learn it and they learned it. Yeah. And so here we are, have they not learned this lesson because they haven't had a case where they knew to put that out? That's the only thing I can imagine. But why not now? It just makes no sense. There's just so much it doesn't make sense in this. And unfortunately, I feel like the answer to it is it's not necessarily a dark road of conspiracy. It's incompetence. And maybe that's better than conspiracy. I don't know. At the end of the day, it's like, let's just figure out what the hell's happening here. Your thoughts in the comments section on Substack and YouTube as we continue to watch the Nancy Guthrie case,

27:59Jennifer Coffin-Daffer. Go check out her channel to see those interviews, break the case, YouTube, wherever you get podcasts. Go and check that out and be sure to press subscribe. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Briewski and the Hidden Killers podcast. Normally in these ads, you expect somebody to ask you to buy something, but this is something different. I'm Julian Barnes and I'm a reporter for The New York Times. I'm a national security reporter and that means I'm reporting on military operations. These are fast paced, quickly moving situations. What exactly is happening on the ground is often shredded in mystery, but we turn to trusted sources, satellite imagery, and expertise built up over years in order to fair it out the facts that wouldn't otherwise come to light. I'm here to ask you to seek out a news source

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