Derrick Callella was charged after he allegedly posed as a kidnapper, sending fraudulent ransom demands within 24 hours of family plea.
A Southern California man accused of posing as a kidnapper and sending fraudulent ransom messages to the family of missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie made his initial court appearance Thursday, prosecutors said.
Authorities say the case against Callella came together within 24 hours. The FBI arrested him on Feb. 5 at his Hawthorne home, just one day after he transmitted the ransom demand.
The criminal complaint lays out a detailed trail of digital evidence that led investigators to Callella’s doorstep.
On Feb. 4, shortly after the Guthrie family published an emotional video pleading with anyone holding their mother to make contact, Nancy Guthrie’s daughter, Annie Guthrie and her husband Tommaso Cioni, each received a text message from an unfamiliar phone number.
The messages read: “Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction,” according to the complaint. Roughly three minutes later, a nine-second phone call was placed to another family member from the same number.
Investigators quickly determined that the number was tied to a voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) application — a tool that lets users obtain a secondary phone number separate from the one issued by their wireless carrier. Through an emergency disclosure request, law enforcement linked the number to an email address and an IP address that corresponded to Callella’s home in California.
After being read his Miranda rights, Callella admitted to sending both text messages using the VOIP account. He told investigators he had gathered the family’s cell phone numbers from a publicly available cyber website and had been following the case on television. He said he sent the messages to see whether the family would respond.
Prosecutors said that Callella’s messages were not connected to a separate ransom demand that was sent to a Tucson CBS affiliate’s online tip portal on Feb. 2 — two days before his texts.
Nancy Guthrie, who is also the mother of TV host Savannah Guthrie, was last seen inside her Catalina Foothills home on the evening of Jan. 31 after being dropped off following a family dinner, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. When she failed to attend church the following morning, relatives entered her home around noon and found she was gone. Her wallet, car, cellphone, hearing aid, and medication were all left behind, and her blood was discovered on the front porch.
Callella is not the only person who has attempted to profit from the family’s grief. On Feb. 11, TMZ reported receiving a handwritten note just before 5 a.m. from an unknown sender claiming to know the identity of Nancy Guthrie’s abductor. The sender demanded one bitcoin — valued at roughly $69,000 — in exchange for the information. The bitcoin wallet address in that note differed from the one included in the original Feb. 2 ransom demand.
Prosecutors and federal agents have made clear they intend to pursue anyone who exploits the ongoing investigation.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI will continue to hold this defendant accountable and any other individuals who seek to interfere with federal investigations or profit from the victim family’s grief,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in its Feb. 12 announcement.
Anyone with information about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is urged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov.
