A former NYPD inspector astonished Fox News hosts this weekend with a somber theory regarding the silence of Nancy Guthrie’s suspected kidnappers in ransom discussions: they are unable to provide proof of life.

life.

“Well, you’re elusive on the communications because you know you’re going to be asked for proof of life that you can’t provide,” retired NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro said on Fox News’s “The Big Weekend Show.”

The comment hit co-hosts Joey Jones and Tomi Lahren hard.

“Emmmm,” Jones groaned off camera. Lahren audibly sighed after hearing the prediction.

“I feel like they’ve been playing games with the details in the house and all of that,” Mauro said. “They probably planned for the idea that they could provide proof of life, and now they find themselves in a spot where, ‘We can’t. And so what do we do? Now we gotta bargain for something else. We gotta bargain to give back something else.’”

“That’s my read with the limited facts we have, hoping against hope I’m wrong,” Mauro said, but he also warned that the entire situation could “all be a hoax.”

“Would you say… that they didn’t mean to hurt her, but something might have gone wrong, and now they’re still trying to get their payday out of this. Is that what I heard you kind of allude to?” Lahren asked.Whatch More