What To Know
- Cal Ripken Jr.’s mom was abducted at gunpoint in 2012, and a former FBI agent is comparing the kidnapping to Nancy Guthrie’s case.
- Ripken was ultimately unharmed and released, but her abductor was never captured.
- Guthrie went missing on January 31 and no suspects have been arrested in her kidnapping.
There are shocking similarities between Nancy Guthrie‘s abduction and the unsolved kidnapping of Cal Ripken Jr.’s mother, Vi Ripken, in 2012. Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer pointed out the links in a new post on X.
“Cal [Ripken’s] mother was kidnapped similarly to Nancy,” she wrote. “Gagged. Blindfolded. Photo taken of the abductor, without a mask. She saw her abductor and she helped to make a composite sketch of him. Abductor didn’t know she was the mother of the famous [Ripken]. Her abductor took pity on her when she begged for him not to tape her eyes. Her abductor empathize[d] with her and ultimately released her. Her abductor had empathy. Her abductor was not caught!”
While Guthrie has not been safely returned in this manner, there are still no suspects in the case of her January 31 kidnapping. “Could Nancy’s case be a similar scenario?” Coffindaffer wondered. “Some cases are outside the norm. They don’t involve anyone known by the victim. That’s what makes them so hard to solve. We learn from past cases which teaches us about future cases.”
Who abducted Vi Ripken? At 5 and 6 on Eyewitness News, where the case stands today. @cbsbaltimore pic.twitter.com/c4J2q6AGJl
— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) July 24, 2015
Ripken was kidnapped at gunpoint in July 2012. She was blindfolded and bounded in the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car and carted around Baltimore for about 24 hours, according to the Baltimore Sun. The next day, a neighbor found her tied up in her car near her home, but the kidnapper was nowhere in sight.
On 3rd anniversary of Vi #Ripken abduction, no arrests, many questions. @cbsbaltimore Surveillance image of suspect pic.twitter.com/hm0XEpGzWG
— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) July 24, 2015
The then-74-year-old helped a sketch artist create a composite of the abductor, and there was also surveillance footage of the suspects, but no arrests were ever made.
“Mom is forever affected there’s no doubt about it and we’re forever affected as a result of that,” Ripken Jr. said after the incident. “And it’s a little unsettling he’s still out there.” He also called not being able to find his mother “the worst feeling you could imagine.”
Violet died in 2021 at the age of 82, and her abduction remains unsolved unto this day.