Nancy Guthrie's Ransom Note Proved WHAT About Her Kidnapper?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

**Tony Brueski** (0:09)
We'll be talking about the Nancy Guthrie ransom letters today from a psychological perspective. Now that they've been released in their entirety by the Sheriff's Department, lots of people looking at these. They've heard lots of different opinions on to what they are, how they were developed, what they mean, reading between the lines. At the end of the day, it's all conjecture.
But let's put our conjecture behind it. Let's put on our thinking hats, if you will, and dig deep into what is going on with the two Nancy Guthrie ransom letters that it seems the authorities believe may have some semblance of legitimacy to them, or at least they believe they came from the same people, these two letters. Not necessarily for sure the people who took Nancy Guthrie, but two in a row from the same people, does it matter? We're going to read both of the letters on the show today, and then we're going to start going into it. The Sheriff's Department finally put both the notes out in full, and the reason they gave was psychological. They're not asking the public for a location, they're asking the public to recognize a man by how he writes. Shavaun Scott is a psychotherapist with 30 years in trauma and forensic work, and the author of The Minds of Mass Killers, is with us every single Wednesday. We always appreciate that. We're going to go through both of these line by line, exactly as it was released. And then, I'm going to throw it to you, Shavaun, to get your initial reaction to it. So let's begin here. This is the first letter. It says, hello, Savannah. We have your mother, Nancy. She is safe but scared. She will be held for ransom, and once payment is received, she will be released unharmed. We will be holding her for a maximum of 7 days. You will need to send Bitcoin in the amount of 4 million USD before 5 PM on Thursday the 5th. If payment is not received, the ransom will be increased to 6 million USD, which will need to be paid by 5 PM on Monday the 9th. Once payment is received to the Bitcoin address below, she will be released within 12 hours of deposit to a safe drop-off location back in Tucson. Payment is not received by the last deadline on Monday the 9th at 5 PM. She will be killed. Your mother is aware of this and her life is in your hands. It is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible. You will not be able to contact me from here on out. There will be no negotiation. Do not play games. Law enforcement will not be able to help you.
She had a smart watch on the floor of the front of her bed and the white floodlight in the backyard was destroyed. That's how it signs off. That is note number one. That's what everybody has been dissecting. Shavaun, I'm going to throw it to you first.
What's your overall take on this whole thing? Then we'll break it down further.

**Shavaun Scott** (3:12)
Well, I confess that when I read these notes, I was surprised.
They strike me as procedural, you know, very, very clear. There's not really any emotion coming through. It could have been an HR memo, you know. That's just how it came off. It's like, here are my main points.
No ranting, no rage, no anger, some things that you might typically see. But any kind of writing leaves a footprint. You know, you learn a lot about a person. So this struck me as an educated person, somebody who may write e-mails in their job, you know, that are sort of managerial. We don't know what kind of job, but somebody who's very comfortable with language and a good vocabulary, good punctuation. So somebody very comfortable with, you know, sending kind of these very procedural e-mails out. That was my initial thought.

**Tony Brueski** (4:14)
Does that mean it's someone who maybe has done this before in terms of sending ransom demands out, or maybe someone who, you know, is sending out notes to shift workers on the line? I mean, how do you read into them?

**Shavaun Scott** (4:30)
Yeah, I can't say that there's anything that makes me think that they've done ransom notes before. Of course, that's possible. We're just speculating. But somebody that I think works in a capacity where they're firing off e-mails, you know, these are the procedures we follow. And I mean, it could be a paralegal. It could be somebody who works in HR. It could be somebody who's got a management position in some kind of company. But it struck me as somebody who's very comfortable with language and comfortable with procedures. I did run the notes through AI detectors, just to see.