A former FBI agent has revealed she received a fraudulent ransom note related to Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping, and two specific details in the message alarmed her enough to report it to federal authorities.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, who has provided expert commentary on the Guthrie case, shared on social media that she received a ransom demand in April 2026, months before she publicly disclosed it. The note was not from the actual abductors, but Coffindaffer said the attempt to exploit the case was nonetheless significant. “No, the ransom demand was not from the abductors, but real nevertheless,” she wrote.
The Two Disturbing Details
Coffindaffer flagged two elements of the ransom note she received that raised red flags for a trained law enforcement professional.
First, the senders used her middle name, which she does not use publicly. Second, they managed to contact her through a private personnel email address that was not publicly available.
The access to personal information she had not put out into the world was enough for Coffindaffer to report the emails to the FBI in April. She explained that she had remained silent about the note until now because the photograph included in her communication was identical to one sent to Lauren Serpa, a friend of Nancy Guthrie who maintains a memorial outside the missing woman’s home.
“These fraudsters should be identified. I realize they are overseas, but they need shut down because this isn’t their only scam,” Coffindaffer said. “Just because we didn’t bite doesn’t mean that some other unsuspecting kindhearted person won’t”.
The Lauren Serpa Note and Official Ruling
Serpa’s ransom note demanded bitcoin and claimed Nancy was being held in Mexico by a mafia boss. The sender allegedly attempted to implicate Annie Guthrie and Tommaso Cioni as well. Serpa expressed skepticism from the outset, noting that the person she communicated with only provided publicly available details about the case.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department later determined that the note Serpa received was fake. Authorities have repeatedly warned the public about scammers seeking to take advantage of the high-profile case, urging people not to send money or provide personal information in response to unsolicited messages.
The FBI’s Assessment of Ransom Notes
The FBI has concluded that all three kidnapping-related messages that surfaced in media reports about Nancy’s disappearance are fake. The assessment covers two ransom notes reported in early February, days after the 84-year-old went missing, and a third, more recent message from someone claiming to know the kidnappers’ identities.
Investigators determined that the first two notes originated from the same sender. In a bid to test the authenticity of the first note, the FBI deposited a small amount of cryptocurrency in an account as instructed, but the money was left untouched, leading authorities to conclude the notes were not sent by anyone connected to Nancy’s disappearance.
The Case Nearly Eight Months In
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at her Tucson, Arizona, home on January 31, 2026, after spending an evening with her daughter Annie and son-in-law. She was reported missing the following day when she did not show up for church. Authorities believe she was abducted in the early hours of February 1 by a masked man captured on her doorbell camera.
No suspects have been publicly named. The investigation has been dogged by unanswered questions, including how many people were involved and whether Nancy was taken by someone she knew. The family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to her recovery, with the FBI adding $100,000.
Savannah Guthrie has acknowledged that her mother “may already be gone” but has said the family is still “blowing on the embers of hope”.
What Comes Next
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI’s Guthrie Task Force continue to investigate. Authorities have asked anyone who receives a communication related to Nancy Guthrie to report it to law enforcement and to remain vigilant against scammers exploiting the case.
For Coffindaffer, the fraudulent notes represent a secondary harm in an already agonizing case. The individuals behind the scams, she believes, are operating overseas and targeting multiple high-profile missing persons cases, not just Nancy Guthrie’s.
Leave a Reply