TMZ’s Harvey Levin has spoken out about a report that said a Nancy Guthrie ransom note he received “apologized” for accidentally killing the 84-year-old. Investigative sources told news site Airmail that a note sent to TMZ “opened with a sputtering and labored ‘apology’ for Guthrie’s inadvertent death.”
Levin dismissed the claim in a video. “That was not in the ransom note that we received. It is not in that ransom note at all,” he said.
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.”
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“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.”
‘The FBI has gone radio silent on me’
Levin said that this realization made him 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 said. “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’s FBI contact thought the idea was interesting and promised to get back to him. However, they never did.
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“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.”
It has been revealed that a note sent in February to local news outlets about Nancy’s disappearance said died shortly after she was kidnapped. Investigators believe that the note, as well as another earlier note demanding a ransom of millions of dollars, were legitimate communications from whoever abducted Savannah Guthrie’s mother, per CNN.
