The frantic search for the mother of Savannah Guthrie continues.
By Catholics for Catholics
As the desperate search for Savannah Guthrie’s mother continues, authorities arrested a California man, accusing him of sending false ransom texts to the beleaguered family about the missing parent.
The New York Post reported that Derrick Callella, who is in his mid-forties, sent a message to Guthrie’s daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni about the infirm 84-year-old Nancy on Wednesday, according to the complaint filed in Arizona federal court.
“Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction,” his message, sent to both Annie and Cioni, allegedly read.
About three minutes after sending the texts, authorities said Callella also made a nine-second-long call to an unidentified family member of Nancy Guthrie, according to the court docs, which didn’t name the relative he allegedly called.
Meanwhile, Savannah Guthrie’s anxious plea to her mom Nancy’s alleged captors is a strong indication that the “Today” star’s family has yet to receive a legitimate ransom demand, according to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
“To me, it reads like an effort to establish some sort of communication,” McCabe told CNN late Wednesday. “We don’t know this for sure, but I feel this is a fairly strong signal they don’t believe they’ve had a legitimate ransom demand yet.”
BREAKING: Authorities have arrested the SCUMBAG who tried to use AI to hide his location while making a FALSE ransom in relation to Nancy Guthrie.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 5, 2026
He is now facing over 20 years for these "heinous crimes."
"The FBI has made an arrest relative to somebody who tried to piggyback… pic.twitter.com/awx7eBlvRT
“What you hear the family saying is, ‘We’re ready to talk, reach out to us, we just want to know you have our mother.’ That’s not something that you would do if already in negotiations with someone that you actually thought had the victim.”
Savannah Guthrie directly begged her mother’s alleged kidnappers in a social media video Wednesday.
Yet, McCabe said the appeal is not rare, before adding: “In these situations, you get a lot of false leads, you get a lot of scammers, you get a lot of people trying to take advantage of a horrible situation — which is unthinkable, but it does happen.”
He said Nancy Guthrie would find it difficult “standing up to the rigors of confinement” because of her vulnerability, advanced age and ailing health.
“This experience is incredibly stressful — medically, psychologically, physically — so knowing that, it’s hard to imagine that an organized, well-executed kidnapping would delay serving a ransom demand. I would have kind of expected that to have happened,” he said.
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