Unique Writing Quirks in Nancy Guthrie Ransom Notes Could Crack Case, Experts Reveal

Hints unearthed from a pair of mysterious messages might soon unlock the enigma surrounding Nancy Guthrie’s suspected kidnapping in Arizona. Retired investigator Lisa Miller from Colorado noted that the grammatical traits and sentence structures strongly indicate that a single individual likely authored both messages. Such a revelation could potentially spark the crucial tip that law enforcement officials have been eagerly anticipating.

Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, the well-known co-host of “Today,” was reportedly snatched from her residence in northern Tucson. Surveillance footage from a doorbell camera, which has been recovered, shows a masked intruder appearing at her doorstep during the early morning hours of February 1.

Last month’s decision to make these messages public might do more than spark a long-lost memory, Miller suggested. It could also increase the pressure on the message’s author, potentially causing them to slip up and inadvertently reveal themselves to those in their proximity.

“For those involved, there’s a constant paranoia about being discovered,” Miller explained. “That anxiety induces what’s known as behavioral leakage, which is precisely what we are hoping for and what those around the suspect might notice.”

But the notes themselves may give the public something specific to look for.

“Think about if you’ve heard someone in your group, maybe outside your orbit that you just encounter that uses this strange language, or if you’re written a letter,” Miller said. “If you see something in their writing or in an email where they’re using these comma splicings, those are the things that are useful to ask people to look for.”

The comma splices — where two sentences are joined with a comma rather than separated by a period — are a signature detail in both notes, she added.

“We see it also again in the second note,” she said. “So it’s continuous between the two notes, which is one of the reasons why I believe this continuity more likely than not indicates this one author.”

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department released the notes in July, six months after Guthrie’s suspected abduction from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Her whereabouts remain unknown, and authorities said they are hoping that someone recognizes the sender’s “unique linguistic style.”

“These are characteristics, these are things that law enforcement can use to ask people, crowdsource for help in this case,” Miller said.

And the comma splices aren’t the only habits that caught her attention.

“We’re seeing also some open compounds through the notes,” she said. “We see ‘heart related,’ that should be hyphenated by most people when they write that. We see smartwatch written as two words. Most people write that as one. Floodlight, we see that written as words. So that is a continuity that we’re seeing between the two.”

She also said she doesn’t think the sender used AI to concoct the messages. There’s a typo, for example, and the sentences don’t have a smooth, AI-generated flow, she said.

Instead, the unusual language may reflect the writer’s unique speech and writing habits, Miller said.

“There’s something else, it’s called idiolect,” Miller explained. “Idiolect is our personal style of communication and it can be affected by many things. The region we grew up in, neighborhoods we live in, slang that we’ve adopted.”

The sender’s idiolect could be why they used the word “perished” rather than “died” and wrote that Guthrie had been “buried in nature,” Miller speculated.

“Perhaps this idiolect, this personalized language is something that they’ve said based on religious upbringing, based on books they’ve read, maybe ‘buried in nature’ is something they utilize,” she said.

Another possibility, she said, is that offenders typically try to minimize their wrongdoing.

“They blame others,” Miller said. “They blame, you know, the victim themselves. They distance themselves from that bad thing that they did.”

Miller also flagged the sender’s use of both a dollar sign and “USD” to specify the ransom amount, along with the way dates and times were written, as other notable quirks.

“I would bring people from the public that are looking at these notes to look at that also, cause that’s a distinction,” she said.

Authorities have not yet confirmed that the notes are authentic, but Guthrie’s daughter, “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, has said she believes they may be — and investigators haven’t ruled them out either.

The sum of all rewards in the case is over $1.2 million.

Anyone with information is asked to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI or, to remain anonymous, call 520-88-CRIME.