A former FBI agent says she received four bitcoin ransom emails tied to Nancy Guthrie’s vanishing and warned they were scams designed to exploit public worry for the missing 84-year-old.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent and NewsNation law and justice contributor, told USA TODAY she got the messages on her private email in April and immediately alerted the bureau.
She kept quiet at first. She spoke up after learning that Lauren Serpa, a neighbor of Guthrie, received a similar note with nearly identical images.
Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing Feb. 1 after she returned to her home near Tucson, Arizona, following a family gathering the night before. Authorities believe she was taken against her will. The case remains open as a kidnapping for ransom, with no suspect publicly named.
Coffindaffer said the emails demanded bitcoin, quoted Bible verses, and included a disturbing image meant to tug at emotion.
"Because they send this picture, it showed a likeness of Nancy shaved with dirt on her face, looking very hurt and with a tear coming down her eye. So they really try to weigh on the emotion and try to convince the person that she's alive, and that they can do something to help."
She said the FBI told her the bitcoin address in those messages did not match the address tied to ransom demands investigators still treated as potentially real.
Coffindaffer believes the senders were cashing in on concern for Guthrie, not holding her. She came forward so others would not fall for the same trap.
"That's the reason I wanted to come forward, because I was concerned that now other people might be contacted and might fall for the ploy."
She added a direct warning to anyone tracking the search.
"I am concerned that other people that are following the Nancy Guthrie case, concerned about her, could be lured to make a deposit."
The Washington Examiner reported the same core account: four April emails demanding bitcoin, first shared only with the FBI, and Coffindaffer’s view that the messages were a scam aimed at people following the disappearance.
Fake notes are not a side issue in this probe. Families and tipsters already face pressure, and bogus demands only muddy the water while an elderly woman is still missing.
That pressure has shown up elsewhere in the investigation, including earlier friction over how notes were handled and described, as covered when the Pima County sheriff reversed course on notes in the case.
On July 1, the FBI’s Phoenix office updated the public on X. The bureau drew a clear line between junk extortion and leads that still matter.
"Some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy. Other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such."
The same update kept the core framing intact.
"This case continues to be investigated as a kidnapping for ransom case."
Pima County Sheriff’s Department leads the investigation with FBI help. On July 31 the sheriff’s office released two messages that had been sent to a Tucson television station shortly after Guthrie vanished. Separate reporting has also examined other ransom notes claiming Guthrie died soon after she was taken.
USA TODAY said it reached out to the sheriff’s department and the FBI; no responses were detailed in the report.
Months earlier, Coffindaffer had already flagged how thin the public trail looked. After the FBI doubled a cash reward to $100,000, she told reporters the move itself was a tell.
In comments carried by the New York Post, she said a sudden jump in reward money usually means investigators still need the public’s help rather than quietly running solid leads. She noted thousands of tips had already poured in and that large payouts often bring a wave of worthless ones.
The bureau also refined a suspect description drawn from doorbell footage: a male roughly 5-foot-9 to 5-foot-10, average build, carrying a black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. That detail was meant to cut through noise, not multiply it.
Early evidence questions have dogged the local side of the probe as well, including claims that detectives were slow to treat blood on Guthrie’s porch as urgent.
Savannah Guthrie has kept appealing for information. In a July 27 Instagram video she said the family is in agony and will never stop looking for her mother.
Those pleas continued as the case stretched on without an arrest, a stretch also tracked when Savannah Guthrie again urged anyone with knowledge to come forward.
Coffindaffer’s four emails fit a pattern the FBI itself has acknowledged: some ransom traffic is pure extortion, and some still has to be checked. The bitcoin address she received did not match the one tied to demands the bureau still treated as possibly real. That distinction matters. It does not close the case.
Guthrie remains missing. No one has been charged. Scammers saw a high-profile disappearance and tried to turn fear into bitcoin. Law enforcement is left sorting real leads from junk while an 84-year-old woman is still gone.
When predators feed on a family’s pain and a community’s tips, the public’s job is simple: help the real hunt, and do not fund the fakes.