Sheriff’s department releases Guthrie kidnapping notes in hopes of generating new leads

CNN ^ | 07/31/2026 | Alaa Elassar

[Responsibility2nd]

Nearly six months after Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, investigators released the full contents of a ransom note and a follow up investigators believe may contain clues that someone familiar with the alleged kidnappers may recognize.

Law enforcement is urging the public to look at the linguistic patterns of the notes.

Authorities said the messages feature “distinctive patterns of word choice, syntax, and phraseology” that reflect the writer’s unique style that people who knew them could recognize. The notes could also provide insight into the author’s mindset, motives and how their tone changed over time — and provide a new lead that could help bring authorities closer to finding Guthrie.

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: arizona; catalinafoothills; guthrie; nancyguthrie; tucson

[Responsibility2nd]

[nitzy]

“perished”???

“send Bitcoin in the amount of .... USD”????

Not a native North American English speaker. Maybe British. Maybe Indian. Maybe something else.

Not a career criminal who deals with Bitcoin often. They would have asked for the number of Bitcoins instead of the value in USD of the Bitcoins.

[Ken H]

“Not a native North American English speaker.”

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Or purposely made to sound like he wasn’t.

[Dr. Franklin]

She’s dead, Jim.

[roving]

The way the daughter pleaded with the kidnappers made it look like she knew who it was.

[frank ballenger]

Does that mean AI has finally been used for something good? To decipher links of words and syntax to suspects in order to try to save someone——now of course long since too late.

[chopperk]

In March there were photos of Nancy and Savannah together and in one photo, standing a few feet behind them was a young man facing the camera who had unique eyebrows. A few months later were photos of the kidnappers and in one of them was a photo of a young man with just the eyes and eyebrows showing. The photo contained the unique eyebrows of the young man in the early pics. The eyebrows matched perfectly.

[cherry]

Let’s keep pretending that Guthrie wasn’t involved in a whistleblower case and Brian kohlberfer,germaphobe and on the spectrum all himself killed 4 college kids and not one shred of dna on his person,in his car nor his apartment...fantasy land.

[SpaceBar]

Sounds like it was written by Patsy Ramsey.

[desertsolitaire]

Isn’t Patsy Ramsey dead?

[TornadoAlley3]

All the notes are fake - fraudsters. Kidnappers never contact the media. They contact the family right away. These are hoaxers.

[T.B. Yoits]

That's not a real ransom note. It's too cleanly written.

For those who want to generate fake ransom notes where it looks like the letters were cut out of magazines:

https://www.ransomizer.com/

You can tailor it to pick more of certain fonts, adjust letter misalignment, adjust cutout choppiness, etc. You can then screen shot or download the image.

[RetiredArmy]

Stupid sheriff screwed the pooch from the beginning!

[Licensed-To-Carry]

If they would go check all the local cemeteries for a headstone that has a name of Paula Schultz, that's where she is buried.

[Getready]

Those communications are about 6 months old. Probably AI generated. Never seen such a bungled case. I would suspect inside job from near family member who needed money. 3rd cousin ne’er do well.
IMIO.

[JeemBeau]

To illustrate a grammar pattern, he first letter does not use “English” commas.