When a high-profile case involves the mother of a beloved morning show host, every decision gets scrutinized under a microscope. And right now, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos finds himself in the hot seat over how he’s handling evidence in Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
The sheriff came out swinging Thursday, flatly denying claims that he’s blocked the FBI from testing crucial evidence. “Not even close to the truth,” Nanos told NBC affiliate KVOA, clearly frustrated by the accusations that have been making rounds in the media.
The Lab Controversy That’s Got Everyone Talking
Here’s where things get interesting. Reuters reported that an anonymous U.S. law enforcement official accused Nanos of insisting on sending evidence to a crime lab in Florida instead of using the FBI’s facility. According to this unnamed source, that decision is literally slowing down the investigation into what authorities believe is a kidnapping.
But Nanos tells a completely different story. He says he actually talked the FBI out of their initial plan, which was to only send one or two gloves found near the crime scene. Instead, he wanted all the gloves sent to where the DNA profiles and markers already exist.
“Actually the FBI just wanted to send the one or two they found by the crime scene, closest to it – mile, mile and a half,” Nanos explained. “I said, ‘No, why do that? Let’s just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist.’ They agreed, makes sense.”
When Anonymous Sources Contradict Official Statements
The whole situation highlights something we see way too often in news coverage of ongoing investigations. Anonymous officials feeding one narrative to reporters while named officials say something entirely different on camera. Who do you believe?
The Reuters source painted a picture of bureaucratic stubbornness getting in the way of justice. “It’s clear the fastest path to answers is leveraging federal resources and technology,” this person said. “Anything less only prolongs the Guthrie family’s grief and the community’s wait for justice.”
That’s a pretty damning statement. It basically accuses the sheriff of prioritizing his own way of doing things over getting answers for a family in crisis.
The Evidence That Everyone’s Fighting Over
Door-cam footage showed an armed, masked person wearing gloves at Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson-area home. Since then, authorities have found gloves in the surrounding area that they hope connect to the alleged abduction. These gloves have become the center of this whole lab debate.
Nanos maintains he has “good leads” in the case, though he admitted to 13News that there’s still no sign of Guthrie herself. She hasn’t been seen since the night of January 31st, and every day that passes without answers has to be absolute torture for her family.
The Politics of Multi-Agency Investigations
What we’re seeing here is a classic clash that happens when local and federal agencies work together on high-profile cases. Sheriffs are elected officials who answer to their communities. Federal agents follow different protocols and have access to resources that local departments don’t.
Neither side is necessarily wrong, but when they disagree publicly through anonymous sources and media interviews, it creates confusion and erodes public confidence. The entertainment world is watching this case closely because of Savannah Guthrie’s profile, which only adds more pressure to an already tense situation.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle to solving a case isn’t the complexity of the evidence, but getting everyone in the same room to agree on how to process it.
