The investigation into the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie has been going on for nine months and has gotten nowhere. Here is something that will be helpful, aside from what has already been written. It would be best to review the original posting before reading this. Here is a link to the original posting.
https://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2026/02/solving-nancy-guthrie-kidnapping.html?m=0
Why is the U.S. so fascinated and absorbed by this kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, even though we know now that she is dead? This case just feels so familiar, like we have been here before.
We actually have been here before, and the Nancy Guthrie case is so compelling because it is a reenactment of our cultural history. Charles Lindbergh was a hero for being the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. Flying was still a novelty, far removed from most people, but he did a lot to popularize it.
There is a nearby avenue named for Charles Lindbergh. Image from Google Street View.
Over ninety years ago, on March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh's namesake infant son was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey. The case was also a fascination to the whole country and, given the difference in technology, is strikingly similar to the Nancy Guthrie case. Both revolve around the kidnapping of a family member of a famous person from home by a lone kidnapper demanding money.
A ransom was paid to the Lindbergh kidnapper, partially in gold certificates as the country was still using the Gold Standard, although it would turn out that the child was already dead. The gold certificates could be cashed in at various banks and businesses. The numbers of the ransom certificates had been recorded and banks were asked to keep watch for them. The kidnapping took place in New Jersey but it soon became apparent that the kidnapper was in New York City, as that was where a number of the certificates had been cashed in.
A man had cashed in a certificate at a gas station. The attendant had written the license plate number on the certificate because the man had appeared to be nervous. The certificate turned out to be one of those that had been paid as ransom. This led the police to Bruno Hauptmann, of the Bronx, who was convicted of the crime and executed in the electric chair.
There is so much similarity between the Lindbergh and Guthrie cases that it is very unlikely to be a coincidence. The difference between the two is that, as we have seen, the Guthrie case was not a real kidnapping for money. It was done to get someone else, the Target Burglar, blamed for it. Why else would the kidnapper send a communication that Nancy Guthrie had died?
Could it be that the kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie chose to kidnap and set it up to resonate culturally with the Lindbergh kidnapping, all in an effort to lead to the Target Burglar? If the Target Burglar had committed a crime, and allowed the Kidnapper to get the blame for it, the Kidnapper would have time to plan all of this while in prison.
Aside from both kidnappings being of a family member of a famous person from home, another close parallel between the two cases is that of familiarity. We saw how the Kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie was clearly familiar with the house and what her schedule would be. The Lindbergh Kidnapper used a homemade ladder to enter a second floor window and take the unattended baby.
But he lived nowhere near the Lindbergh family and it remains a mystery how he knew where the baby would be, when the baby would be temporarily left unattended, and that the window would not be locked or the catch broken. It was March 1 in New Jersey so the windows wouldn't be open because of warm weather.
Both kidnappers sent multiple ransom notes that were vital to the investigation. The Lindbergh ransom notes were handwritten and were evidence against Bruno Hauptmann because the handwriting matched samples that would be found in his home. A later communication that was received in the Nancy Guthrie case was determined to be genuine because it was sent from the same IP address as the one that was received immediately after the kidnapping.
The Lindbergh ransom notes made it obvious that the kidnapper was a foreign national. English clearly wasn't his first language. He sometimes used German words that were similar to their English equivalents, such as "gut" for "good" and "und" for "and".
The Guthrie ransom notes also definitely point toward a foreign connection. The communication admitting that Nancy Guthrie had died used phrases that would probably not be used by a person whose first language was English, such as "She is buried in nature now" and "Time is no longer of the essence". At first I thought that the Kidnapper was using this to point to the Target Burglar because he used such phrases or had studied literature. That is possible but now I think it was purposely done to reenactment the Lindbergh case, with which there is a strong cultural resonance, and point to the Target Burglar as having some foreign connection.
In particular is the currency in the Nancy Guthrie ransom demand. It lists the amount, followed by USD, meaning United States Dollars, such as $1,000 USD. Tucson is a long way from Canada and it was utterly unnecessary to include USD in the figure. It is highly unlikely that Americans, dealing within America, would add USD to a currency figure. I think it was done intentionally, to resonate with the Lindbergh case and point to the Target Burglar as having some foreign connection, possibly to nearby Mexico or a Central American country.
The Kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie sent a communication indicating that she had died. This makes no sense if this was really a kidnapping for money. But it makes perfect sense if it was planned to get the Target Burglar blamed for it because this makes him a murderer, as well as a kidnapper. It is yet another resonance with the Lindbergh case because the baby was killed although, like Nancy Guthrie, maybe unintentionally. The communication reported Nancy Guthrie as "buried with nature" just as the Lindbergh baby was found buried in a grove of trees.
Then there is the clothing of the victims in both cases. This is yet another close parallel. The Lindbergh kidnapper provided the baby's sleeping suit to prove that he was the kidnapper, or connected to the kidnappers, and the Kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie described the pajamas that she had been wearing when kidnapped, and her Apple Watch, which hadn't been reported in the news.
The ladder in the Lindbergh case parallels the plants in the Nancy Guthrie case. The homemade wooden ladder that could be assembled and disassembled indicated that the kidnapper was a skilled woodworker, and he turned out to be a carpenter. Likewise, the emphasis on the plants in the Nancy Guthrie case is intended to point to the the Target Burglar, who may have worked in landscaping, or as a gardener, or in a nursery.
There was a go-between in the Lindbergh case, one John Condon who met with the kidnapper twice in cemeteries at night. This was an important part of the kidnapping story. John Condon was a character and publicity-seeker who was considered as a suspect himself for a while. He put an ad in the news, offering to add to the reward for the baby's return, and got a response from the kidnapper asking him to act as a go-between. The Nancy Guthrie case didn't have a go-between that met the kidnapper face-to-face at night. What it had instead, as a parallel in Twenty-First Century technology, is the kidnapper's encounter with the doorbell camera at night.
Both kidnappings were done on the first of the month, although Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped on February 1 and the Lindbergh Kidnapping was on March 1. It couldn't be on the anniversary because that would make the copying obvious. The purpose was resonance, without being obvious.
So many parallels between the two cases, although nearly ninety years apart, is very unlikely to be a coincidence. The Lindbergh case was part of American culture and we know that history tends to repeat itself. The level of national interest in the Nancy Guthrie case is because of the cultural resonance, even if we are not consciously aware of it.
My conclusion is that the kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie not only chose the kidnapping as a way to get revenge on the Target Burglar but also, knowing that there would be great national interest in the case, set it up to closely resonate with the Lindbergh case.
The Lindbergh case ended up just as the Nancy Guthrie Kidnapper would like, the perpetrator being caught and sent to execution. But the Kidnapper would add another layer to it. He would set it up to look as if the Target Burglar had done it, and bring about a case against him that would resonate with the Lindbergh case, with the Target Burglar ultimately meeting a fate similar to that of Bruno Hauptmann.
This is definitely a copy of the Lindbergh kidnapping. But the Lindbergh kidnapping was a failure as a crime. The kidnapper didn't get away with it. He got ransom money but was ultimately caught and executed. So it makes no sense to copy it if Nancy Guthrie was really kidnapped for money. But it makes perfect sense if the real purpose of the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping was to get it blamed on someone else, the Target Burglar.
We can see the cultural influence of the Lindbergh case in how the Son of Sam, a serial killer in New York City, would be caught in a very similar way 43 years later. The Son of Sam wrote multiple letters to the news just as Bruno Hauptmann had written ransom notes.
Bruno Hauptmann was caught when a gas station attendant wrote down his car license plate number because he was acting "nervous" when paying with a gold certificate. The Son of Sam was caught when he walked toward a woman and shot at her from the direction of a parked car that she saw had been ticketed.
Both were arrested in the same way. Police tracked the car and then arrested the suspect when he emerged from home and got into the car.