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FBI Director and Arizona Sheriff Dispute Roles in Nancy Guthrie Probe
FBI Director Kash Patel accused Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos of sidelining federal agents for four days in the probe of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie's February disappearance from her Tucson-area home. Nanos disputed the claim, stating the FBI was notified promptly and a task force member was present at the scene. The case remains unsolved after 93 days, with no suspects named.
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TUCSON, Arizona — FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday accused Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos of keeping the FBI out of the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of TODAY co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, for four days after she vanished from her home in the Tucson area.
Patel made the remarks during an appearance on the podcast 'Hang Out with Sean Hannity,' released on May 5, 2026. What do you need?
What can we do? And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation," Patel stated. Guthrie was reported missing around noon on February 1, 2026, after she failed to appear for virtual church services.
She had last been seen the previous night following dinner at her daughter's home in Tucson. Investigators believe she was targeted in her disappearance, according to Nanos. Patel also faulted the sheriff's department for sending DNA evidence from Guthrie's home to a private lab in Florida rather than the FBI's facility in Quantico, Virginia.
Blood found on her porch matched Guthrie's DNA, while mixed, partial DNA samples discovered inside the home have posed analysis challenges, Nanos has said. The Pima County Sheriff's office turned to genetic genealogy to examine those samples, but the lab reported difficulties. "We would have analyzed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information.
Our lab’s just better than any other private lab out there," Patel told Hannity. He added that a plane was ready to transport the evidence to Quantico, emphasizing that the first 48 hours in a missing person case are the most critical. Nanos responded that evidence decisions on the scene were based on operational needs.
Once involved, the FBI recovered images from Guthrie's Google Nest doorbell camera depicting an armed, masked man outside her home the morning she disappeared. Guthrie lacked a subscription that would have preserved the video, so agents pulled the images from residual data on backend systems. Patel released the images on February 10, 2026, after working with Google to obtain them.
