What To Know
- Forensic psychologist Gary Brucato believes the two ransom notes in the Nancy Guthrie case were written by different people.
- He said the different language indicates a possible rupture or conflict between the two kidnappers.
- Brucato also suggested the masked “Porch Guy” seen in footage was likely just an accomplice.
As the Nancy Guthrie investigation continues into its sixth month, with no updates on her whereabouts or potential suspects, a forensic psychologist has shared their thoughts on the two ransom notes.
Speaking to NewsNation journalist Brian Entin on Friday (July 31), Gary Brucato said he believes the ransom notes were written by two different people. The first note demanded $4 million in cryptocurrency, while the second note claimed that Nancy had died and was “buried in nature.”
Nancy, the 84-year-old mother of Today’s Savannah Guthrie, went missing on February 1, when police believe she was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Investigators have released doorbell camera footage of a masked suspect and sent DNA for testing at the FBI lab in Quantico, but no suspects have been named publicly.
“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 Entin.
Brucato said the first note appears to be written by an “intelligent” person with a clear focus on the money. The second note, however, he believes, shows more emotion and could have been written by a woman who knew Nancy’s famous daughter, Savannah.
“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 stated, describing the language as “florid.”
He added, “The first one is demanding money and the second one is undoing the ability of the first person to get money, which suggests to me that the first person would’ve been kinda mad that the second person wrote the note.”
“There’s something going on in the dynamic that’s causing a rupture, and yet for some reason no one has come forward,” Brucato continued.
He also stated that he doesn’t believe the masked Porch Guy wrote either note. “I think [it] is clear [he] 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,” Brucato explained.
“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,” he added.
While Brucato noted the primary motivation as money, he said the person who wrote the second note could have been inspired by something else. “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.