California man pleads guilty to faking Nancy Guthrie ransom note

Derrick Callella admitted he called and sent texts to Guthrie’s family, demanding a bitcoin transaction

A California man is facing up to two years in prison or a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to sending Nancy Guthrie’s family a phoney ransom note, federal authorities announced on Thursday.

Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of the Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on 31 January at her residence outside Tucson, Arizona . Inside the home, authorities observed her cellphone, medication and other basic essentials. Law enforcement officers also found drops of her blood near the porch.

After KOLD, a CBS affiliate in Tucson, reported that it had received a ransom demand with a bitcoin wallet address, the Guthrie family posted a video on 4 February, imploring Nancy’s abductors to contact them.

Derrick Callella, a 42-year-old resident of Hawthorne, a neighborhood in the greater Los Angeles area, had followed details of Guthrie’s disappearance on TV, according to a February complaint filed with the Arizona district court.

Shortly after the family’s public plea, Callella obtained the numbers of Nancy’s daughter, Annie Guthrie, and her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, and sent each a text: “Did you get the bitcoin were waiting on our end for the transaction,” per court documents.

Law enforcement officials tracked down an email address with Callella’s name that was registered to the number behind the texts.

The text messages are unrelated to the ransom demand that KOLD received. According to federal authorities, Callella was seeking to gain information about the investigation.

The FBI continues to investigate extortion notes that may be legitimate related to Guthrie’s disappearance, the agency announced on Wednesday.

Callella is scheduled to be sentenced on 10 September.