TMZ’s Harvey Levin Sets Record Straight On Report Ransom Note Said Nancy Guthrie Was Dead

Pima County Sheriff’s Department/Screenshot

TMZ’s Harvey Levin set the record straight Monday on a report that a ransom notes he received about Nancy Guthrie “apologized” for accidentally killing her.

The 84-year-old Nancy is the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, and has been missing from her Arizona home since Feb. 1. Despite finding physical evidence and doorbell video of the alleged perpetrator, the FBI has been unable to crack the case.

Investigative sources told news site Airmail in a piece published over the weekend that a note sent to TMZ “opened with a sputtering and labored ‘apology’ for Guthrie’s inadvertent death.”

Levin posted a video to X on Monday clarifying that the ransom note did not contain an apology declaring “that Nancy was no longer alive.”

“That was not in the ransom note that we received. It is not in that ransom note at all,” Levin reiterated. He continued:

It does say that she’s ‘scared but okay,’ but the ransom note makes no reference to Nancy Guthrie either dying or the kidnappers apologizing. Now there is a reference to Nancy Guthrie not being alive anymore, but that is from the person who sent us multiple emails saying that he knows or knew where Nancy Guthrie was and where the kidnappers were, and he wanted money in return for information. We passed that along to the FBI as we did the ransom note, but this person kept sending us emails, and early on he said, “time is of the essence,” and then a few days after the kidnapping he said, “time is no longer of the essence,” meaning she wasn’t alive. So, that’s where that came from, not the people who kidnapped her, but from the person who was sending us these notes.

“If somebody is scamming and wants to get money, why would they say, ‘time is no longer of the essence?'” Levin asked. “You want to say, ‘no, time is still of the essence,’ so you can get the money and make people feel that it’s urgent to pay it.”

Levin said that realization prompted him to contact the FBI again to insist that “there’s something about this guy that felt legit.”

“And I said, look, what if TMZ does a documentary and that we try and get in touch with this guy and even pay the money?” Levin told the FBI. “And if he takes us to the location, then you get resolution, the Guthrie family gets resolution. And if he scams us, he scams us. But I just had this real feeling that it might be real.”

Levin said his FBI contact thought the idea was interesting and said they’d get back to him, but they never did.

“And I’ve called a half-a-dozen times since over the last couple of weeks, and I’ve gotten nothing back,” Levin said. “For some reason, the FBI has gone radio silent on me…they’ve ghosted me, and I don’t know what that’s about.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!