Nancy Guthrie Could Be Victim of 'Modified Wrench Attack' as Scammers Try to 'Extort' Savannah Guthrie, Reporter Claims

Reports are feeding into the growing theory that Nancy Guthrie's disappearance may have been the result of a "wrench attack" attempting to "extort" Savannah Guthrie.

Reporter Michael Ruiz claimed Nancy may have been a target due to being a "high net worth proxy" because of her relation to the Today show host.

"It is an interesting theory and there have been a couple of reports recently about this type of attack and how they're on the rise," Michael told Fox News Digital's "Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno" podcast on the August 6 episode.

The journalist clarified that the name for a "wrench attack" originally came from an online meme. It quickly spiraled into common terminology for getting money, information or assets by violent force.

"It came from a meme about a hacker who couldn't figure out how to hack somebody's password and said, 'I'll just go hit them with a wrench until they tell me,'" he explained. "And the idea is you go and do physical violence on someone to get their password or their money or whatever you want from them."

According to Michael, theorists are referring to Nancy's case as a "modified wrench attack" because she isn't the one with money and power.

"Nancy's not the crypto-keeper," he noted. "Savannah's the one with the money. And the theory is that they would go after Savannah's vulnerable mother to extort Savannah."

Many amateur investigators find this to be a plausible idea because Nancy's disappearance does not have the makings of a "random" attack.

"It does seem strange that this would be some sort of random act where they found her in the middle of this area where she lives...," the podcast host assessed. "It seems to defeat any logic to think that this was just some random kidnapping."

Nancy appeared to be forcibly removed from her home in the early hours of February 1 after a mysterious figure showed up on her doorbell camera footage in the days prior.

Two ransom notes claiming to be from her captors were sent in the days after she vanished. The first demanded $4 million in Bitcoin. The second claimed that Nancy had already "perished" and was "buried in nature."

According to Michael, there's a chance the individual who sent the notes never crossed paths with the person who captured her.

"These wrench attacks are very split into two camps, there's the brain behind it, they call him the mastermind, the criminal thinker, and then there's the muscle who is hired and is a collaborator and carries out the actual physical violence," Michael added. "And they don't actually have to be in proximity."

Earlier in the episode, Michael and Donna dissected the idea that recently released ransom notes could have been sent by someone who was foreign to the United States, due to their peculiar wording and grammatical structure.

Michael revealed that in a "wrench attack," one of the parties could be a "tech-savvy" scammer abroad who hired muscle in a completely different country to carry out the crime.

"This is a little bit more elaborate," he continued. "When you look at how they haven't been able to trace the ransom notes back to an individual, you've got to think that they may be pretty tech-savvy."

However, Michael stated that the Pima County Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Chris Nanos may not be totally sold on the theory as the investigation passes the six-month mark.

"I asked the sheriff about it; he didn't have much to say. I think it's a plausible possibility," Michael said. "I don't think it's a focus of the investigation, at least in the sheriff's words."