Nancy Guthrie Ransom Demand Brutally Branded 'Probable Hoax' as Deadline for $6Million Bitcoin Handover Passes
The ransom for Nancy Guthrie was called a probable hoax after the deadline passed.
Feb. 10 2026, Published 2:54 p.m. ET
RadarOnline.com can reveal the ransom demand for missing Arizona grandmother Nancy Guthrie has been branded a "probable hoax" after the deadline for a $6million bitcoin payment passed without any proof of life or consequence for her family.
Nancy, 84, the mother of TODAY host Savannah Guthrie, vanished from her Tucson home late on Saturday, January 31.
Timeline of Disappearance and Early Evidence
Family members drove Nancy back to her property after dinner.
She had been driven back to her property by family members after dinner at her daughter Annie's house.
At 2.28am on Sunday, her pacemaker disconnected from her phone, and by morning she had failed to appear at church.
When investigators reached her home, they found blood on the porch and her doorbell camera torn from its mountings.
The property was initially returned to the family on February 3 before police retook control the next day – a lapse experts warn may have compromised evidence.
Ransom Deadline Passes as Focus Shifts
Savannah pledged to pay the ransom in a family video.
Former SWAT team captain Josh Schirard has now said: "The (ransom) deadline passing just tells law enforcement we need to close this particular path of investigation and continue putting efforts and resources and assets into the ones that might be more viable."
The clock ran out on a 5pm Arizona ransom deadline listed in a purported note that is said to have demanded $6million in Bitcoin – a figure authorities have not confirmed.
With no verified line of communication between the Guthrie family and the supposed abductors, Savannah posted a tearful Instagram message hours before the deadline, calling it an "hour of desperation."
She had earlier pledged in a family video "We will pay," while urging those holding her mother to release her soon.
According to Schirard, the family's anguish may have been exploited. "Everyone has questioned the legitimacy and authenticity of these ransom notes and… this just tells us that, okay, this wasn't real," he said.
Experts Say Case Does Not Fit Kidnapping Pattern
A suspect was seen wearing a mask in photos released by the FBI.
Veteran F.B.I. special agent Lance Leising agreed signs pointed to a probable fabrication and hoax.
He said: "In legitimate ransom cases kidnappers move fast. They establish leverage quickly. Communication begins within hours, not days, of an abduction. Proof of life is produced early and often. Here, the opposite happened. This case has not followed the history of a typical kidnapping at all."
Schirard added: "It's horrible that somebody would do this, but we have to refocus efforts on things that are much more likely to produce results."
He also said investigators have already been pursuing several leads, including the possibility of homicide and whether someone familiar to Nancy might be involved.
"We can't rule anything out," Schirard stressed. "You know, if this is an abduction, 90 percent of abductions involve someone that the abducted person knows and a lot of times that's unfortunately family or someone very, very close to family."
On Tuesday, February 10, authorities released images and videos of the alleged suspect.
Digital Forensics, Searches and Ongoing Hope
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Police searched Annie’s home over the weekend.
Police over the weekend searched Annie's home, where officers were seen entering with a silver briefcase.
Schirard explained: "That was a Cellebrite case… we use Cellebrite (digital forensics) pretty extensively to recover digital evidence from phones, devices, tablets, computers."
He said digital forensics could yield deleted photos, messages, and location data from family devices.
Officers were later observed leaving the property with several brown evidence bags and the following day returned to Nancy's home to search the septic tank.
Schirard added: "A lot of people forget that having a septic tank means wastewater doesn't go into a city sewer, it goes into the tank.
"So, somebody may have flushed something thinking that would get rid of it, but instead it would actually just be deposited in the septic tank. It is a possibility (investigators) are now trying to make sure that there's nothing in there that could indicate any kind of guilt."
He added: "The ransom is just one of many avenues that police are pursuing, and it passing is just closing one door so that we can really pursue some of the ones that remain open out there.
"Until we can prove that she's not alive somewhere, they will conduct this as a rescue operation.
"When you switch to focusing on a recovery (of a body) there's a pivot, a shift in attitude, things tend to slow down. "At the end of the day, it's not going to hurt the investigation or anyone to try to keep hope alive."
