As the search for Nancy Guthrie continues, many people who are watching things unfold may be curious about a potential motive in the case. The vast majority of the time, money is a motive for crimes of this nature, and that’s what we’ve sort of seen when it comes to the unverified ransom note demanding millions of dollars in bitcoin. But could that be a red herring?
Parade spoke with retired NYPD Sergeant Joe Giacalone about motives in missing persons cases to get a full picture of what else could be going on. Of course, without a suspect, there’s no way to definitively say what someone’s motive is or isn’t.
Parade asked Giacalone if these ransom notes—which authorities still haven’t deemed legitimate—could be red herrings in the case. Giacalone isn’t ruling that out.
“Investigators are going to take these serious no matter what. And they have the capability of being able to investigate this as a potential, viable situation, or they can also rule it out as a potential hoax. We’ve already got one person found out and arrested,” he points out, referring to the arrest of Derrick Callella, who admitted to sending a phony ransom request to the Guthrie family, unrelated to the other notes mentioned by authorities.
Then, we dug a little deeper. We asked Giacalone if the motive isn’t money, what else it could potentially be.
“The three biggest ones that we know is love, money, and drugs, right?” Giacalone tells Parade. “Those are the three biggest motives that people do this stuff. But in a situation like this, you also have to consider a revenge factor, a cover-up factor, meaning that the person found out something within the family and now they’re trying to keep it under wraps, that kind of thing.”
“The investigators gather and they sit there and they huddle up, so to speak, and they try to create their hypothesis. And listen, most people are victimized by someone they know, and that’s always the starting point. And then you let the evidence in the information direct you into which one of those categories it’s going to be,” he adds.
Read more of Parade’s interview with Giacalone: Savannah Guthrie’s Mom’s Case Enters Critical Phase and Retired NYPD Sergeant Talks Troubling Red Flags (Exclusive)
