What happened to Vee Ripken? Just before Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Tucson home, the mother of a Major League Baseball legend faced a bizarre kidnapping plot.
Vee Ripken was the mother of MLB star Cal Ripken, Jr. Vee Ripken was 82 and died in 2021. She “was once the victim of a bizarre kidnapping.” The Associated Press informed In his obituary. Guthrie, mother of today show Co-host Savannah Guthrie was abducted on the morning of February 1, 2026. She has not been located, and the identity and motives of her abductor remain unclear.
A retired FBI agent named Jennifer Coffindoffer compared the two cases. on x. He wrote, “You won’t believe this. Cal Ripkin’s mother was kidnapped just like Nancy was.” He stopped short of theorizing that they were related; Rather, she wrote: “Could Nancy’s case be a similar scenario? Some cases are outside the norm. They don’t involve anyone known to the victim. That’s what makes them so hard to solve. We learn from past cases that teach us about future cases.”
Like Nancy Guthrie, Vee Ripken was abducted at gunpoint from her home
Nancy Guthrie
You will not believe this.
Cal Ripkin’s mother was also kidnapped, like Nancy.
*Taken away from his home at gunpoint
* strangled
*blindfolded
*Photo of the kidnapper taken without a mask
*He saw his captor and helped create a composite sketch of him… pic.twitter.com/m2OUixyEhA– Jennifer Coffindaffer (@CoffindafferFBI) 20 July 2026
What happened to V? “In 2012, police said she was abducted at gunpoint at her home in Aberdeen and blindfolded and paraded around by her kidnapper.” AP Informed. “Approximately 24 hours later she was found bound and unharmed in her car near her home. The case was never solved.”
according to a espn Story From 2012, “the gunman forced Ripken into his silver Lincoln Continental between 7 and 8 a.m.,” investigators reported. espn At the time they “did not know the kidnapper’s motive and no ransom was demanded for Vi Ripken’s release.” according to espnReferring to Ripken, the kidnapper “put some kind of mask or blinders on her, and she could see out somewhat.” But he told a neighbor that he didn’t know who his son was and that he just wanted money and a car.
This is somewhat different from the Guthrie kidnapping. But they also have similarities:
- Vee Ripken and Nancy Guthrie were both abducted from their homes.
- Both were elderly women who had connections to celebrities.
- Armed attackers were involved in both. These details about Nancy’s kidnapper are known because his image was captured on her door cam video. It is believed that both the attackers were men.
- Photographs of both suspects were obtained, but neither was caught. “Although the man’s photo has been widely distributed and Cal Ripken Jr. has offered a $100,000 reward, he has never been caught,” informed WBAL-TVV Ripken incident.
There are also differences between the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie and Cal Ripken Jr.’s mother.
(Photo by Chuck Solomon/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Setnumber: X49090 TK2 R17 F24)
There are also differences in both cases:
- The ransom demand in Guthrie’s case came after the demand for Bitcoin in currency notes.
- Ripken was returned; Nancy Guthrie is missing.
- There was blood on Nancy’s back. It was his, the sheriff revealed at a news conference.
A year later, Violet (Vi) Ripken suffer well What appears to be an unrelated carjacking. Coffindaffer explained how rare it is for elderly people to be victims of kidnapping.
They wrote, “Of the 49,292 kidnappings tracked by the FBI, only 692 involved victims 70 years of age and older, making kidnappings of the elderly extremely rare.”
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