New York Post94%
Nancy Guthrie ransom notes were written by two different people, expert claims — and what this could mean 76%
By Chris Bradford83%
8/3/2026, 5:06:54 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Confirmation Bias, and Overconfidence Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 42.3% saturation with 228 hits. Analysis detected 1,639 faulty-reasoning hits from 539 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 61.1% and a BS Rank of 76% (6,615 of 26,881 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 75.40% of the article peer group.
The two Nancy Guthrie ransom notes were not written by the masked prowler seen loitering on the porch of the missing 84-year-old matriarch’s Arizona home, a forensic psychologist has claimed, suggesting two authors with different motives were behind the messages.
Gary Brucato claimed an intelligent person wrote the first note, which demanded millions in cryptocurrency, while someone who is more emotional was behind the second message, which said that Guthrie had died and was “buried in nature.”
“These two ransom notes… do suggest to me two different people who are perhaps experiencing some kind of rupture in terms of their attitude about what happened,” Brucato told NewsNation journalist Brian Entin Friday.
He suspects the second note was written by a woman who may have known Nancy Guthrie’s TV star daughter, Savannah Guthrie, and was trying to distance herself from the case — legally and emotionally.
“When I look at the note with the modicum of sympathy and the distancing, it seems to me a risk was taken in writing that because it would’ve been written from the same place that the first one was written,” he said, describing the language in that message as “florid.”
“There’s something going on in the dynamic that’s causing a rupture and yet for some reason no one has come forward.”
Brucato suspects three people are involved – but neither author was the masked figure loitering on Guthrie’s porch.
“I think [it] is clear was some sort of goon that was put there to give the impression of a totally outside agent who never met this woman who came in to do the dirty work,” he said, describing the figure as “quite a cool-headed character under pressure.”
“We’ll see there was a person who did the deed, who I’ve called the waiter who served it, and I think that’s ‘porch guy,’ and behind the scenes I think there are at least two people with different psychologies and motives.”
Brucato suspects the motive of the so-called porch guy was “probably money” but believes the author of the second note could’ve been inspired by something else, without being specific.
“It was money and something else, emotion, something that was preyed upon and the person regretted it because it all went up in smoke,” he said.
The second note addressed to the Guthrie family, as opposed to Savannah, claims the kidnappers “did not fully grasp the seriousness of her physical condition.”
“We never intended to hurt her, that was not our intention.
She perished shortly after she was taken,” it said, suggesting Nancy Guthrie died from a heart-related condition.
“She is buried in nature now.
Nothing you could have done could have changed the outcome,” the note claimed.
“We want your family to know this and hope you all can find peace.
We are truly sorry.”
Guthrie’s pacemaker app disconnected at 2:28 a.m., Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos revealed at a Feb. 5 press conference.
Nanos has vowed the case isn’t cold even though six months have passed since Guthrie’s disappearance.
He admitted that analyzing the digital and DNA evidence collected during the case has been “complex and time-intensive.”
Speakers
2speakers73%attributed speech148writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageGary Brucato
338 attributed words86% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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