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On Thursday night, Harvey Levin, the founder of TMZ, appeared on “Hannity” to reveal startling new details about a supposed ransom note his team received concerning the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.
Guthrie, who is 84 and the mother of NBC’s “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie, vanished early Sunday morning. As the investigation enters its sixth day, authorities are scrambling to gather any leads about her location.
Levin explained that while the initial deadline set in the alleged ransom note had passed on Thursday, a subsequent deadline set for Monday holds much greater significance.
“The note starts by saying she is safe but frightened,” Levin shared. “It continues by stating she is aware of the demands. Through us, they are communicating with the family, and the sheriff’s department has passed on the letter we received to the family, detailing exactly what is being asked, with Nancy supposedly in the know.”
Savannah Guthrie, accompanied by her siblings Annie and Camron, took to Instagram on February 4, 2025, to make a heartfelt appeal for information regarding their mother Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. (Credit: Instagram/@SavannahGuthrie/Today)
Levin said the contents of the letter make him believe the individual who wrote it was nearby, possibly in the Tucson area. He said the individuals behind the note knew specific information about the placement of objects in Guthrie’s house, including the placement of an Apple Watch, information he said was not publicly available.
“There is a phrase in this email that absolutely makes me believe this person who wrote this, and if they’re telling the truth, that Nancy is within a radius of the Tucson area — not in Tucson right now, but in a radius. It could be New Mexico. I don’t know how far, but I think at least what the authorities have is they’ve got a radius, and that’s something.”
Levin said he does not believe law enforcement will be able to trace where the email originated, noting that the FBI is working with TMZ’s IT team. He confirmed the note demanded payment in cryptocurrency sent to a specific Bitcoin address.
Savannah Guthrie and her mother Nancy Guthrie are pictured Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“I know the Bitcoin address is real,” he said. “What I will say is this, this is not a letter that was thrown together in a couple of minutes. It is a very specific, well organized, layered letter that really lays things out. This is not AI.”
In conjunction with the FBI, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos held a press conference on Thursday afternoon saying there were no official suspects in the case, and providing a clearer but chilling timeline of events before and after Nancy’s disappearance.
She traveled to her daughter Annie Guthrie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni’s home at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday evening for dinner. She was dropped off at home hours later, at 9:48 p.m., the last time she was seen.
An undated photo of Nancy Guthrie and Savannah Guthrie provided by NBC in repsonse to the disappearance of the 84 year-old mother of the Today Show host. (Courtesy of NBC)
At 1:47 a.m. on Sunday morning, her doorbell camera disconnected, authorities said. At 2:12 a.m. a security camera detected motion on camera at Nancy’s home, but the video is unavailable because a subscription service wasn’t active. At 2:28 a.m., Nancy’s pacemaker disconnected from an application on her phone.
Nancy’s family checked on her just minutes before noon on Sunday, after they were alerted that she did not attend church, and called 911 at 12:03 p.m.
A law enforcement source told Fox News Digital that there were “blood drops” leading from the entryway outside down the house’s pathway towards the driveway.
Nanos told reporters that everyone who has recently been in contact with Nancy is a suspect.
“We’re actively looking at everybody we come across in this case, everybody. We would be irresponsible if we didn’t talk to everybody — the Uber driver, the gardener, the pool person, whoever. Everybody — it’s so cliché — but everybody’s still a suspect in our eyes. That’s just how we look at things and think as cops,” said Nanos.
“And the family’s been very cooperative. They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them. And we want that relationship to continue.”