Ex-FBI agent Coffindaffer says she got four bitcoin ransom emails over Nancy Guthrie

Mixed · 2Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent who has covered the Nancy Guthrie case, says four emails demanding payment in bitcoin for Guthrie's release were sent to a personal email address of hers in April. 1 2 Centre · 1According to Newsweek, the first email arrived at 12:30 p.m. on April 10 with only an apparently AI-generated image of Guthrie. A second, seven minutes later, demanded 25 bitcoins within 12 hours and included a Bible reference. A third at 3:52 p.m. repeated that demand. A fourth, the next morning at 11:26 a.m., cut the demand to 2 bitcoins and included a QR code for a bitcoin wallet. 1 Mixed · 2Coffindaffer said the address was one that few people know, and some messages used a middle name not used publicly. Coffindaffer did not reply and gave the emails to the FBI. Coffindaffer also said the Bible verses seemed aimed at Coffindaffer's Catholic faith. 1 2

Mixed · 2Coffindaffer went public after neighbour Lauren Serpa received a similar demand in late September, claiming Guthrie was alive in Mexico and asking for bitcoin. Coffindaffer believes the same sender or senders were behind both. Newsweek said it had not verified that the wallet addresses matched. The Pima County Sheriff's Department has said investigators found Serpa's note not credible. 1 2 Mixed · 2Coffindaffer thinks the emails came from extortionists, not Guthrie's abductors. The Washington Examiner reports the FBI told Coffindaffer the bitcoin address did not match the one in ransom notes investigators believe may be legitimate. 1 2 Centre · 1Coffindaffer suggested the sender targeted Coffindaffer because, in April, Coffindaffer publicly urged the family to pay ransom-note senders to "tickle the wire", a tactic meant to prompt a target into revealing details. Coffindaffer also called the probation sentence of Derrick Callella, a California man who pleaded guilty to sending fake ransom notes to the family, a "terrible" precedent. 1

Centre · 1The Pima County Sheriff's authorities urge anyone who gets such messages to report them, not to send money or personal information, and say the investigation remains active. In July the FBI's Phoenix office said some ransom notes were fake extortion attempts but others "may potentially be legitimate" and were still being investigated. 1 Mixed · 2Guthrie, 84, mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home near Tucson, Arizona, around Jan. 31–Feb. 1. Blood was found near the front door, and FBI footage shows a masked person at the home. The family has offered a $1 million reward, and no suspect has been named. 1 2