TMZ’s Harvey Levin Reads From Alleged Nancy Guthrie Ransom Note As Final Deadline Passes

TMZ founder Harvey Levin joined CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday night to discuss the final deadline in the alleged ransom note Nancy Guthrie, which passed at 7 PM on the East Coast. Levin’s outlet received the unverified ransom note, which Savannah Guthrie – the Today show anchor – had indicated the family was willing to pay in order for the safe return of her mother.

Levin read a line from the ransom note, which said “it’s in the best interest” of everyone involved to resolve the matter quickly. Levin went on to report to Burnett that no payment appeared to have been made to the Bitcoin account, where the money for Nancy Guthrie, a reported $6 million, was supposed to be sent.

“The founder of TMZ, who received the initial ransom note for Nancy Guthrie. So Harvey, you know this Bitcoin account, and we are now, what, seven minutes past the deadline in the original alleged ransom note which you received. And so you’ve been looking at the Bitcoin account. What are you reporting?” Burnett began.

Levin replied, “There’s nothing there. It has not been deposited. Erin, I was thinking of something that you raised on Friday when you spoke to the reporter from KOLD and asked about the second note. And you asked her if this was a ransom note, and she kind of carefully said that she doesn’t think authorities would characterize it as a ransom note. The only other thing I can think of—what if, and I don’t know this, but I’m just raising this—what if there was another Bitcoin address in that second ransom letter that doesn’t align with the one we received?” He continued:

I don’t know why they would do this, and it doesn’t make sense to me, because if Savannah did pay this money, I don’t know that it’s in her interest to do an APB for everybody to look out for somebody who might have her mom or to find her mom if they paid the money and they’re waiting for the return of their mother. I don’t know that she would go out with a call like that. So on a level, I don’t see why there would be another Bitcoin account. But I think it’s possible it was in this letter. I want to read you just—I’ll read you one line from the ransom note we received—and they say it is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible. So, you know, this was way back when the first ransom note was issued and days passed. And on Saturday, Savannah said, “We are going to pay this.” So it’s baffling to us. We just don’t understand what has transpired, but the account we’re looking at does not show a deposit.

Burnett followed up, “And so you said the original sentence was, “It is in the best interest of everyone to have this completed as soon as possible.” All right, so now I understand exactly what you’re saying, right? It was interesting that the way that that reporter who had seen the second letter did, you’re right, did characterize it as not a ransom note. But so we don’t know if there was an additional address in it or not. But when you talk about the Bitcoin address itself, my understanding is, Harvey, it’s not hard to check it. I mean, you’re checking it frequently, right, that Bitcoin address?”

Levin replied, “Not hard to check it, but almost impossible, and maybe impossible, to find out who is it going to. That’s the issue. But we’re not seeing a deposit, and we’ve been looking, obviously, all day. And we looked at four o’clock our time, five o’clock Tucson time, and we’re not seeing it.”

Burnett added, “And we were talking to a crypto expert, John Griffin. He was saying, okay, somebody—whoever set up this particular Bitcoin account—does show a basic level of crypto knowledge, which is certainly consistent with everything else, right? No one has been able to find out the whereabouts of Nancy Guthrie, so there’s nothing basic about the activities here. But then he added, if there’s a sophisticated crypto operator, that they will move the funds, he said, in such a way that it will go to other cryptocurrencies and then the tracks will disappear. You know, we all hear, ‘Oh, Bitcoin is supposed to be all transparent,’ although then we hear, ‘But no one will have any idea on God’s green earth whose account this is.’ But, you know, the fact that they could transfer this from Bitcoin into other cryptocurrencies.”

Watch above via CNN.

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