Significance of Feminine Tone in Second Note About Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance

Can we just, like, hit on the feminine point a little bit more, maybe expand on that? Like, buried with nature, we never intended to hurt her. Even, like, she perished? Perished? Was that word used, I wonder? Because that's, that jumped out at me. That's not really how people talk. And then the nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome. Like, don't blame yourself. You know, like, the weird. Yeah. It's just very conciliatory and very strange, considering the facts of this investigation, of this case, of this poor woman, to talk this way. You know, any self-respecting criminal would at least be a little more honest about what happened here. They're trying to soften what they did. And please don't blame yourself. I hope you're not being too hard on yourself. It's so weird. Well, because, I mean, if you're following their logic, they had said in the original note on February 2nd, and again, Sunday was the first, give us $4 million by Thursday or else. Again, using the term actual or else. And now here we are, they haven't paid, and they're writing the note saying she's gone. Oh, and by the way, there was nothing that you could have done to change the outcome. So they seem to be saying, you didn't give us our $4 million, but don't worry, she was dead anyway. Even if you'd given us the money, it wouldn't have panned out for you. But if you want to give us money anyway, we can get the body back to you, I guess. Or at least maybe that's just still lurking out there. It's implied, it's not clear. And Brianna's description of it, no one's talking about. But that original, because the original note we know James said $4 million by Thursday, $6 million by the following Monday. If you wait, it's going to cost you more. Then comes the second note. Why would they send the second note? Hey, FYI, she died. And don't blame yourself. What's the point of that? Well, it looks like they also didn't give any real particulars on how to get that $4 million to them. It doesn't sound like there was any clear communication given, this is how you would respond to me, get back to me. And then they're just double tapping, hey, by the way, it's not worth it now because she's gone. And we're sorry, but you can still give me some money because I get the body back to you. But I think you and Maureen are nailing a couple of really important things. If true, that she's with nature instead of saying she's gone with God. I mean, if you're following the case, you know that Nancy was a believer. And so that would track with her, this note person saying it was a heart condition, which would track with if you're following the case, you know, about the pacemaker. But saying that she is buried with nature is interesting that needs to be looked into. And there's plenty of people who are really smart and can put words together and study language and really good context of a statement like that is that said in certain parts of the world. And certainly I hope the FBI is looking into something like that, because that's just a very interesting phrase. And then what you had said earlier, Megan, about, you know, we didn't realize the extent of her condition. It kind of drew me to one of the two things, which is, you know, I thought initially that there was some preoperational surveillance, meaning they looked at the house and maybe even looked at her and then whether or not that was because she was Savannah's mother or because it's in line with this nice house, nice theory. You know, we were talking earlier about, you know, a crime gang hitting these nice houses, but still both would speak to preoperational surveillance. And maybe that's what she's, you know, the note writer is alluding to is when we looked at it, we didn't realize she was that, you know, kind of old or fragile. And I thought that was very interesting. There's a reaction today from Savannah herself, who did address this on the Today Show this morning. It's like, you kind of forget that she's back doing her job without any resolution in this case, which, you know, she has to do. We all have a job to do. She has a job to do. But like, then this story is in the news again, and she felt the need to respond for obvious reasons. And here's what she said. The bravery and courage with which you have done this job every day since that happened, nothing short of remarkable. Nothing short of remarkable. I love you guys, and I love this place, and this is unusual and unprecedented, to say the least, to be sitting here. But, you know, I don't have any comment on this story, not involved in our coverage. But I can't pretend I'm not here. And so since I am, I wanted to just take the opportunity to ask people, to really to beg people to come forward. Somebody knows something. And this is a new story today that is on your radar. But this is the life that my sister lives, that I live, that my brother lives, that our extended families live, that our children live every day. And we are in agony. We cannot be at peace. How much I try to come out here every day and smile and find that joy, and I will, I promise I will. This is the moment to tell you that we need your help. We're begging for your help. And I'm not gonna miss that opportunity. And so please, if you're watching, no matter how small, the reward is there. You can tell us. It can be anonymous. Please do the right thing for us, for our family, for our children. And we love our mom, and we'll never stop looking for her. Never. I wish she had mentioned the reward too, because it's like somebody, that the reward actually could motivate somebody to come forward. And that is something we should discuss, because Howard's reporting, and I know Howard Blum, he's very solid. I don't know how he gets the information he gets, but he gets really good exclusives. And his reporting is that this task force that we've all discussed before, that's what remains on the investigatory team now, and it's a combo of FBI and Tucson cops, detectives, that the task force has expressed some regret, from the sound of it, about not paying the ransom. That if they had just paid, if the FBI had agreed to pay the ransom, or tell Savannah to pay the ransom, that $4 million in the beginning, that the FBI really feels confident in its ability to track the Bitcoin, James. It's Bitcoin, so it's not just cashing a check. It's gonna be a lot harder to track it. But that at some point, the Bitcoin has to be withdrawn, or it does the kidnapper no good. And so why didn't they just pay the $4 million, and then track the Bitcoin, and arrest the perpetrator? Because what he writes is that, and we had speculated about this, instead they decided to, quote, tickle the wire. And remember, we talked about how Harvey Levin had reported that there had been a $300 deposit made into the bank account of whomever wrote those first two notes, into the Bitcoin account, and no one bit. No one touched it. Now he's reporting it's a different number, like $141 that was deposited, but it's neither here nor there. The point is, the FBI, according to him, did in fact, this is the first confirmation we've had, that it was the FBI who put the money in, and that it was an attempt to tickle the wire, James. They thought maybe the kidnapper would be dumb enough to take it. And Howard reports that either the kidnapper was like, nice try, and knew it was a trap, or just wasn't interested in risking anything for $140. So your thoughts on whether they should have paid it? If they're really believing this note was legit, as Savannah does, and her information definitely comes from them, and that they had all these things right about the Nancy scene and Nancy herself. And now we know more about what the two notes sounded like. Why didn't they just pay? It's because protocol, I mean, we got to remember that the reality is we still never had a proof of life, ever. So the first note didn't indicate anything like a picture of her, anything. Yeah, we do have some information about the watch, but that would not be specific enough that the Bureau would say, yeah, just go ahead and launch $4 million. Because if you do, and you don't get her back because it's a scammer, then there's going to be more $4 million requests. And you're going to keep playing that game until you run out of money. And so that's why they don't do it, is because if you don't have any real legitimacy, and the only way you can really get that legitimacy is you've got to show us this person that you say you have, they just can't do that. And that's a question I ask too, if they believe so much, but that protocol is there for a very good reason. And it might sound callous, but I agree that they shouldn't have paid the $4 million without an actual proof of life of Ms. Guthrie. I just don't understand, Maureen, what kind of kidnapper, if you go with this is the kidnapper, what is the point? What is the point of on Thursday after they've missed the deadline, sending a follow up saying, she's dead. She's dead now. We didn't intend to hurt her. It's not your fault. We think it was the heart. Nothing you could have done. What is the point? The point is they're amateurs, and I have to first go back for a minute if I could to James, because if in fact they did pay the ransom without any proof of life, what precedent does that set for every other person who's kidnapped? Everyone's gonna jump out of the woodwork even more than they do right now, because you saw the predators pounce when that award- Can we really say there's no proof of life? I'm just gonna play devil's advocate. When the first note allegedly said, this is what she was wearing, this is where her Apple Watch was, and check out the broken floodlight on this part of the home. That's our proof that we have her and we were there. Is that qualified? That's more than saying nothing. Sure, but it's not enough to say that she's not dead. I mean, if you just consider how they transported her or how they had to transport her. So she's bleeding from presumably her mouth, which they already know by now, because they've tested that blood to see if saliva was in it or whatever on the front porch. So she's bleeding from her mouth. She's 84 years old. She has no medication with her. She's very frail. She's scared to death. And there's no proof of life. They obviously spoke with her doctors. They've talked with family members. You could see from watching her on Savannah Show how frail she was. So if they were doing pre-incident surveillance, they saw her with a walker or a cane going very slowly around her backyard. And when it's really hot and dry like that, it's difficult to, you could see someone breathing with labor. You have to have proof of life. It does sound callous, again, to Jim's point, but I agree with it, actually. I mean, like in negotiation school, I mean, they teach, obviously we want to establish communication rapport, but we got to keep the goal in mind. And we both have the same goal here. I mean, I want to get her, if I'm working this as a negotiator and I'm talking to the kidnapper, like I want her back and you want to give her to me because you want your money. So we have a common ground here, but for me to get this money, because 4 million bucks, I don't have it laying around. I got to go get that, but before I go get it, can you prove to me you have her? And it can't be that you know there's a floodlight out that you could have got from a Google Earth overview or some previous story, because Megan, you did a great job playing all the previous stories of interviews that Savannah had done with her mom, where I could have seen that Apple watch. I could have seen the details of that inside of her bedroom. I could have told you the nightgown she likes to wear. I could have told you the color of her pillows. All things I would have got from open source. I wasn't the kidnapper, but I would have seen those things, you know, they were open to me. So what we would be looking for is give me something else, like prove to me you have her, which is why you always see the newspaper clipping, you know, the hostage holds to the newspaper of the day. So we know, okay, we still have a live body and then we can negotiate in good faith. James, if you're fake, if this is a faker, okay, I'm with you, I get, I accept all that, but like, if you're a faker, why would you send that second note? I can, I can actually kind of follow where the real kidnapper might do it. Like if the real kidnapper has her, it's Tuesday night. Sorry. It's it's the, the first was Sunday when she was taken, right? Yes. And then the notes came on the second and third. So you have her, you want the money. So you're sending out the notes on Monday and Tuesday saying 4 million by Thursday, 6 million. If you wait till Sunday and you offer enough detail in there to convince somebody you have, or this is what she was wearing. This is where the Apple watch was. And this is what the floodlight looked like. Then you watched the world explode over your note, all the speculation, all the stuff. And then let's not forget. One of the first things the Guthrie family said Savannah in particular right away was she's she desperately needs her medication. Like she, she said, she's not going to survive without her heart medication. And we were never sure whether that was a hundred percent true or whether it was an attempt to ratchet up the urgency for the kidnappers. Like we need her back ASAP. Maybe, maybe it was 100% true and she dies. So now she dies. So you, you can't give proof of life. There's no more life. You have Nancy, but it's a body now. And maybe by the time they sent this follow-up note, um, on February 6th, it was the day after the ransom, the ransom was due and not paid. Maybe by that day, you decided to take a different tactic. You've got it. You've got to fess up. You cannot provide proof of life. There's not going to be any talking to Nancy or pictures of Nancy holding the daily paper. So you decide to come clean saying she's dead, but I don't know whether it's explicit in here, according to that Brianna it's not, but maybe the theory is the earlier demand will stand and maybe they will pay us for the return of the body. And indeed that is what Savannah responds with. So that, that makes sense to me. But if you are a fake kidnapper, just trying to get Bitcoin 4 million or 6 million, that second note makes no sense. Oh, well, I don't, I mean, I'm surprised you haven't been through this cause cause I know I haven't, I think probably Maureen has too, but when someone's trying to get something from you, they just keep trying. They don't stop, right? They're incessant about it. It never ends. They just keep coming. And so they hang on for anything. And that's why you send the second note is, Oh, maybe I say the right things. Maybe I sound like you all had said earlier. Maybe if I sound apologetic or I sound sympathetic that maybe, you know, you'll send me some money because I have no, if I'm a scammer, I have no money right now. Maybe I can get a hundred grand from you. If I tell you where the body is, you know, and that's, that's, that's typical one-on-one fraud, fraudster mentality and methodology. That's exactly what they do. So the second note doesn't surprise me at all. You wouldn't expect them to write the second note, ratcheting it up. Like she's hurting, you know, she's scared, which by the way, uh, someone, I think it was Harvey reported was in the first note that she was scared. She's okay. But she's then, you know, so the second, no, you, you ratchet that up, get, get Savannah upset. She's the one with the deep pockets. Like let's scare her as opposed to run the risk of her being like, I'm not paying $4 million for, you know, somebody who may or may not have a body. Well, no notice it worked because she went on Instagram the next day on the seventh saying, Hey, we hear you and we will pay. So what happened? That's the good question is okay. What happened from the Instagram post to this IP address? Why was there no more contact? Right? What, what happened then? Cause there's no one reporting on any of that question. Nobody. Right. Okay. So what happened here? Maureen, did you want to weigh in? Cause I have another thing I want to bring up, we're missing a lot of pieces of information and, and without them it's, it's going to be hard, but I think part of what happened with the second note is they're trying to take their foot off the gas. They're trying to let, let, trying to make the, the situation a little less explosive. And by that, I mean, they're trying to turn down the temp right now. Everybody's full steam ahead. Everyone's looking for, they're out searching for it's peddled to the metal, every single law enforcement agency, all. And they just wanted to, to just pull that back a little bit. And by saying that she's gone, by saying that she's, you know, out in nature, what does that mean? It means they're going to, so we don't have to worry about writing warrants for houses right now. I mean, it just, it just sends the investigation in a totally different direction and away from someone. And the final thing about this is a lot of this in the verbiage here is someone who cares. You know, we always said from the beginning that this is someone that, that had some nexus to Nancy. This, this person is trying to say that they care because that might as Jim said, that James said that might get them to pay, but they're just predators. They're just going to do whatever they can to get someone to pay them. Would love to hear your feedback. You can email me too, Megan, M E G Y N at megankelly.com, or just leave a comment below, but join the community by becoming a subscriber. We really, really value your input and your support. We may not always agree, but we are always going to talk about it and respect no BS, no agenda, no fear. Think about this in 2006, $20,000 equaled roughly 33 ounces of gold at spot price at today's prices. Those 33 ounces would be worth about $165,000. That's why many smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. And that's why you should consider buying gold from birch gold group for thousands of years. Gold has been a store of wealth. And today it's a crucial part of any balance strategy. Even better birch gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered retirement account in gold. Just text MK to the number 989898 to receive your free info kit on gold. There's no obligation, just useful information with an A plus rating with the better business bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers. Let birch gold help you diversify with gold. Now that's peace of mind. Again, text MK to 989898 today.