What Nancy Guthrie's Kidnapper Put in That Note — and Why It Doesn't Add Up

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

**Tony Brueski** (0:09)
Nancy Guthrie notes. Oh yeah, there's a big bile of them. And are you as confused as I am by them? We're going to try and make some sense of everything we've been hearing this week from this source, that source, the other source, the source of the source of that source to the next source. Let's talk about the notes, because there isn't just one. There's a pile and they don't agree. One supposedly came from the kidnapper and says Nancy's buried with nature. A completely different guy is telling TMZ that time is no longer of the essence. An outlet says the killer apologized. Another says they never did. That's where we're at. Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer is here to help us untangle it, along with retired FBI Special Agent Robin Drake to help us untangle it as well. We have two FBI people that are retired FBI people on the road in various secretive locations that we won't reveal.
So I think this is great because, you know, Megan had the one person on that said there's 75% there. And then somebody else is like, no, not at all. Let's see where we go here.
Jen, you follow this closer, I think, than anybody I know. Untangle this twisted web of notes and did they apologize? Did they not apologize? What conclusions have you come to this week?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (1:33)
Well, I tell you what, Tony and Robin, this is the thing.
The whole source situation is out of control. I used to think it was one source for everyone, but now because all the source information is different for everyone, now I know there must be four or five sources because they're all saying something else. So I finally got at least on note two down to the nitty gritty. Brianna Whitley, who was with a Arizona station and saw the note, she came out and told us very specifically about the second note. So I at least feel confident that the second note, I don't think she'd lie, really watched for tells with that. She has no reason to lie. She's not with the station anymore. So she can say whatever she wants. And so finally, we have, I think, the truth not from a source, but from the person who read it with their own eyes.

**Tony Brueski** (2:32)
Because she's with Crime Junkie now, right? Is that accurate? Yes. Okay. And she was with, was it K-Gun or the other one, one of the other TV stations in Tucson?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (2:41)
One of them was with the Phoenix station. Okay.

**Tony Brueski** (2:44)
So she was in the, close to the market there. What's in this note to, let's start there, that the one that she talked about and why do we think there's legitimacy to note number two?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (3:00)
So based on the FBI's responses, BAU's response, having five different times that the family, which was clearly driven by notes, they're looking down, addressed the perpetrators. To me, it's clear that the Bureau and Pima County Sheriff's Office believe these were real. They even did a press conference on it. They discussed how there were things in the notes that no one else could know. One of them being her clothing. I know a lot of people say, yeah, but was the crime scene really secure? Could somebody have picked out the floodlight? Well, how did they know about what was on her nightstand? How did they know what she was dressed in? So I think that's why the Bureau ran full force, that they believe the notes.
Both of these notes are the two that they believe. And secondarily, Savannah said on national television, she believes these two notes are real.

**Tony Brueski** (3:58)
So note one from this same person who would have given note number two, note one would have been the one that said, what?

**Jennifer Coffindaffer** (4:08)
So all we know in note one is, and what's recently come out, is that they said, Savannah, we have your mother. Or worse to that effect. I don't have my notes in front of me, but that was dressed directly to Savannah. And that's where they said basically $4 million, and it's going to go up after that, or else we're going to kill your mom. Like more, but we haven't seen, and she didn't tell us, meaning Brianna, we don't know, other than from source information, what's in that note.
The first one.

**Tony Brueski** (4:41)
Sure. So that's note one, essentially what the basis of what we understand is we have your mom, we want $4 million in Bitcoin. Is that essentially as accurate as we can be on that? And then note two came from the same source, the same place that note one came from. So that's how those two are connected.