Investigators in the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie allegedly dismissed blood evidence on her front porch as unrelated and opened the crime scene within two days, failures that may have cost the case critical forensic ground.
Sgt. David Stivers, the recently appointed head of homicide for the Pima County Sheriff's Department, arrived at Nancy Guthrie's Catalina Foothills home late in the afternoon of Feb. 1 with a team of detectives. Blood stains were visible on the front porch. Sources familiar with the investigation told the New York Post that Stivers and his team paid little attention to the dried blood, reportedly believing it came from an unrelated accidental injury, a head bump or a nosebleed. DNA analysis later confirmed the blood was Nancy's and is now believed connected to her kidnapping.
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared on Jan. 31, 2026. Her family reported her missing the next morning after she failed to appear for a virtual church service. She is 84 years old, and authorities quickly concluded she had limited mobility, making a voluntary departure unlikely. Yet the deputies who responded spent hours debating whether she had been kidnapped or had simply gotten lost.
Two days after the disappearance, the crime scene was opened. Reporters, social-media influencers, and even Amazon and pizza delivery drivers gained access to the area around Nancy's home, the same ground where the blood evidence sat and where forensic traces might have survived had the scene been sealed and held.
Public records show Stivers had been formally reprimanded roughly two months before Nancy's kidnapping. The reprimand cited "poor judgment" during a separate homicide investigation and accused him of delaying the securing of crime-scene evidence in that earlier case. Homicide charges in that prior matter were eventually dropped because of insufficient evidence.
The pattern is hard to miss. In the earlier case, Stivers was faulted for slow evidence handling. In the Guthrie case, his team allegedly dismissed the most visible piece of physical evidence at the scene and then failed to keep outsiders away from the property. Whether the reprimand factored into any decision to keep Stivers on the Guthrie case, or whether anyone in the department reconsidered his role, remains unanswered. The Pima County Sheriff's Department did not respond to the Post's requests for comment.
The department's handling of the investigation has drawn scrutiny from federal authorities as well. Newsmax reported that the FBI grew frustrated with the probe and was eager to take control but lacked legal authority to do so without a formal family request. Sheriff Chris Nanos allegedly blocked FBI access to key physical evidence, including gloves recovered near the scene, and chose to send materials to a private lab in Florida rather than the FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Virginia.
Sgt. Aaron Cross, president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, spoke bluntly about the department's leadership.
"It is a common belief in this agency that this case has become an ego case for Sheriff Nanos."
A federal source echoed the frustration, saying that more than two weeks into the investigation, police had "made no leads, no progress." The FBI eventually doubled its reward to $100,000 for information leading to Nancy's recovery or to arrests.
Beyond the blood evidence, the first day of the investigation suffered another setback. A search-and-rescue plane equipped with a sophisticated surveillance system sat grounded because no deputy trained to operate it was available. In a kidnapping case where every hour matters, the department's most advanced aerial tool never left the tarmac on day one.
Investigators who searched Nancy's home and property found no footprints, tire tracks, or DNA evidence pointing to suspects, according to the Pima County Sheriff's Office. That absence of physical leads makes the mishandling of the blood evidence all the more consequential, it may have been the strongest forensic link available at the scene, and deputies initially waved it off.
The case took a darker turn when the family received two ransom notes. The first, which demanded bitcoin and set a deadline of Feb. 9 at 5 p.m. local time, warned that Nancy would be killed if the payment was not made. It read, in part: "We have your mother Nancy. She is safe but scared." The note promised she would be released within 12 hours of payment at a "safe dropoff location back in Tucson" and stated the kidnappers would hold her for a maximum of seven days.
Days later, a second note arrived. Its tone was different. The kidnappers claimed Nancy had died accidentally.
"We never intended to hurt her, that was not our intention. She perished shortly after she was taken."
The note added: "She is buried in nature now." It offered no location for her body and closed with an apology: "We want your family to know this and hope you all can find peace. We are truly sorry." Authorities have confirmed no further notes have been sent since.
Breitbart reported that the first ransom note, sent Feb. 2, demanded $4 million in cryptocurrency. Authorities later released both notes publicly, hoping someone would recognize the distinctive writing style. Doorbell camera footage from two separate days before the kidnapping suggested the crime was planned in advance by an unidentified male. Two men previously detained during the investigation have since filed a $3 million legal claim against the Pima County Sheriff's Department for wrongful detention.
The AP documented that the FBI recovered doorbell camera footage showing an armed, masked person tampering with the camera the night Nancy disappeared, evidence of premeditation that makes the deputies' initial hesitation over whether this was a kidnapping or a "lost person" case all the more difficult to defend.
Savannah Guthrie has spoken publicly about the toll the case has taken on her family. She told NBC's Hoda Kotb, "We are in agony," and said she wakes up every night thinking about what her mother went through. In a video addressed directly to the kidnappers, she pleaded: "We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her." She continued to plead publicly as months passed with no resolution.
Separately, Fox News reported that the Pima County Sheriff's Department issued a separate alert for Coral Michelle Smith, 40, wanted for a kidnapping and aggravated assault roughly 6.8 miles from Nancy's home. Authorities have not alleged any connection between Smith and the Guthrie case, but the alert highlighted ongoing criminal activity in the area. No suspects have been publicly identified in Nancy's disappearance; the only known description is of a person wearing a black 25-liter Ozark Trail backpack, captured on doorbell camera footage.
The case has now stretched past its six-month mark with no arrest and no public identification of suspects. Nancy Guthrie's body has not been recovered. The bitcoin address from the ransom demand has not been publicly traced. And the department that fumbled the crime scene, grounded its own search plane, and spent precious hours debating whether a kidnapping was really a kidnapping has declined to answer questions about any of it.
A separate legal proceeding addressed a man who sent fraudulent ransom messages during the investigation, a reminder that the case attracted not just public sympathy but opportunistic interference that further complicated an already mismanaged probe.
Meanwhile, the ransom notes have been released to the public in hopes of generating leads, and the family has made clear their anguish has not faded.
When a family reports an 84-year-old woman missing and blood sits on her front porch, the job is straightforward: treat it as a crime, lock the scene down, and run every lead while the trail is fresh. Pima County did none of that. The people who pay for that failure are not the deputies or the sheriff, they are the family still waiting for answers.
