As the investigation into Nancy Guthrie‘s kidnapping case crosses the six-month mark, a new report from The Wall Street Journal is highlighting possible mistakes by the sheriff and lead investigators.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, led by Chris Nanos, has been overseeing the investigation after Savannah Guthrie‘s mom was reported missing on Feb. 1. As of Aug. 2, Nancy hasn’t been found and there have been no arrests in the case.
After reviewing personnel files obtained in public records requests and conducting interviews with current and former county and federal officials and people close to the case, the WSJ has found that there were concerns from the start of the investigation, including who Nanos appointed head of homicide, Sgt. David Stivers.
According to personnel records, Stivers was reprimanded two months before Nancy was kidnapped for “poor judgment,” as he was blamed for delays securing crime-scene evidence in a homicide case. The charges in that case were ultimately dropped for insufficient evidence, The Journal reported.
When it came to Nancy’s case, people familiar with the investigation said Stivers and his detectives ignored the dried blood on her front porch for hours after they arrived on Feb. 1, suspecting that the blood came from some unrelated cause. “They failed to seal off the property with police tape to protect sensitive crime-scene evidence, allowing reporters, livestreamers, and Amazon and pizza delivery drivers entry to the porch,” the WSJ wrote.
After undergoing DNA analysis, the blood samples were later confirmed to be Nancy’s. It’s now believed to be connected to her kidnapping.
The WSJ later reported that Nanos promoted Stivers to lieutenant in July. The new role will reportedly take effect in September.
Lt. Heather Lappin — Nanos’ opponent in the November 2024 election, where he was running for reelection (he ultimately won after a recount) — told The Hollywood Reporter in February that Nanos had removed some of the department’s best detectives because they supported her election campaign. “A lot of the Guthrie case is just consequences of his really bad decision-making, the years of decimating his units,” she told THR at the time. “Three of our best homicide detectives, probably in [all of] southern Arizona, were removed from Homicide because they supported me [in the election].”
People familiar with the matter also told the Journal that Nanos put Lappin on administrative leave weeks before Election Day and sidelined deputies who had supported Lappin after being reelected.
The department’s senior pilot, who had backed Nanos’ challenger in the election, was also demoted to patrol duty days before Nancy’s kidnapping following a workplace complaint.
This led to more delays in the investigation on Feb. 1, as the department struggled for hours to find a flight deputy to operate its search-and-rescue plane, a $1.7 million Cessna surveillance aircraft, equipped with both infrared and zoom-lens cameras. Flight data reviewed by The Journal showed that by the time the plane got up in the air to begin its search, it was getting too dark to use its zoom-lens cameras.
The WSJ said that Nanos has disputed its findings. “I can assure everybody that we are working hard every day with all of our partners,” the sheriff said, including “corporate America,” which has “offered up some assistance with some of the brightest minds in this country.” He added, “This case is not cold.” THR has also reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for comment.
In addition to coming under fire from his own department, as Nanos was accused in March of hiding an extensive disciplinary record, the sheriff has also been criticized by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel.
Neither Nanos and Patel has announced any further breaks in Nancy’s case, despite the latter also promising early on to lead the charge on the federal side. In May, during an interview with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity, Patel accused Nanos of sidelining FBI agents early in the investigation. “For four days, we were kept out of the investigation,” he said.
The sheriff pushed back against those claims in an interview, stating that there weren’t any delays. If Patel “really believes that we tried to block them or keep them out of this or not share things,” Nanos said, “I, 100 percent, want him to call me because that’s the furthest from the truth.” According to The Journal, Nanos said he has never spoken to Patel.
Throughout the case, Savannah has continued to take to social media, pleading for answers in her mom’s disappearance. On Saturday, after Nanos released a pair of ransom notes initially sent to the CBS affiliate in her home city of Tucson, Arizona, the Today co-anchor asked that anyone with information come forward.
“We are begging for help. We are desperate. We need someone to come forward,” Savannah wrote on Instagram. “Someone knows something. Someone suspects something. Someone recognizes the writing in the ransom demand notes. Someone has noticed something different, strange, troubling or just unusual — perhaps with someone they deeply love. Perhaps they are afraid to come forward. Perhaps they are conflicted. Perhaps they are angry or upset for being in this situation. There is a way out — to tell what you know. You can do so anonymously. The reward is available.”
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said the notes “purport to have been written by kidnappers.” The second note, which was sent to the CBS affiliate on Feb. 6, stated that Nancy “perished shortly after she was taken. We believe it was heart related. She is buried in nature now.”
Authorities said they decided to share the ransom notes publicly in hopes that someone recognizes “distinctive patterns of word choice, syntax and phraseology that reflect the writer’s unique linguistic style.”
