As investigators continue their efforts to track down Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy, one former FBI top official addressed the kidnapping theory.
The current prevailing belief is that Nancy Guthrie was taken by kidnappers and is being held while awaiting ransom, as a note demanding a $6 million payment in Bitcoin indicates. But former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker has to wonder whether any of it is true. Speaking to Fox News’s The Big Weekend Show, he expressed his doubts.
Watch:
“I think they’re playing this out. This is about all they have right now. And they’re making it very clear that they will pay,” Swecker said of the Guthrie family’s communications with the alleged kidnappers. “The question really is. and I’m very skeptical of this, is this a kidnapping? Does somebody have her and is she really alive? We don’t have the answers to that question right now. I don’t think she’s been — that proof of life has been credibly authenticated at this point, so they’re searching other places. You see them searching in the backyard there. At that so-called manhole, there’s still rounding out the investigation, and so I think they’re giving some leeway for some possibility that this is not a kidnapping. And as I said, I’m very skeptical that it is one in the first place.”
“If not a kidnapping what do you think this could possibly be? Obviously, we’re all just speculating. None of us have all of the answers, but my ears did perk up when you said that this could not be a kidnapping. What do you mean by that?”
“Well, one, if this was a kidnapping, it would be a very simple matter to authenticate and provide proof of life. Asking her a question that only she would know the answer to or asking her to provide some information that only she would know. And the fact that the family hasn’t paid the ransom at this point tells me they don’t – that they’re not to that point where they think this is a credible authentication, they’ve had credible authenticators. So it could have been a home invasion that went bad, she’s an 84-year-old woman living by herself out in the desert. No lights, maybe, appear to be wealthy. So a lot of people come and go there, she’s not doing her own lawn, taking care of her yard or pool, somebody else does that. Repair people delivery people. So we don’t know. For me, you have to allow for the possibility that this was something other than a kidnapping,” he explained.
He went on to suggest that someone may be “a third party here that’s just playing with them” and trying to “exploit this situation,” noting that the ransom demand has gone up from one million to six million.
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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