Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos says he remains confident investigators will crack the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case, but six months in, with no arrests and a recall effort mounting against him, confidence alone is not enough.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her Tucson, Arizona, home in a home invasion on February 1. More than 25 weeks later, no suspect has been publicly identified. No arrest has been made. And the family is still pleading for answers.
In an interview that aired on "Today," Nanos told viewers his department is still working through a mountain of physical and digital evidence. He did not name a suspect. He did not announce a breakthrough. He offered reassurance, and not much else.
Fox News Digital reported that Nanos described the volume of evidence his team is processing.
"We have so much DNA to sort through. We have so much, in terms of video evidence, to look at. So I'm still positive that we're here to resolve this case."
That optimism stands in sharp contrast to the public record. More than four months after Nancy vanished, the Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed that a nearby kidnapping suspect, Coral Michelle Smith, 40, wanted for a May 29 armed kidnapping seven miles from the Guthrie home, had no connection to the case. As the New York Post reported, investigators told the public flatly: "This case is not related to the Guthrie investigation."
So after half a year, the sheriff has plenty of evidence to sort, and no publicly identified lead that has panned out.
On July 27, Savannah Guthrie broke weeks of relative public silence with a new video posted to her Instagram account. She addressed her mother's abductors directly, urging them to "make the right choice" and tell the family where to look for Nancy.
An unnamed federal source told Fox News that Savannah consulted with law enforcement before releasing the video, a detail that suggests the plea was not spontaneous but coordinated with investigators.
NBC colleague Erin McLaughlin added a layer of intrigue when she reported on the plea's timing:
"It's not clear why Savannah decided to release this message now, but it could be a response to a potential new line of communication."
McLaughlin also noted that experts believe the language "appears to be pointed at whoever committed the crime, though law enforcement have not provided any public updates in the investigation recently." What that "new line of communication" involves, and with whom, remains unexplained.
As Breitbart reported, the full text of Savannah's plea included a raw admission of despair: "We are in a nightmare that will not end. I'm asking you, begging you. Make the right choice. Help us find her. Tell us where to look for her."
The family's anguish has been compounded by a grim development. A second ransom note, emailed to a Tucson television station in June, claimed Nancy "perished shortly after she was taken" and was "buried in nature now." Authorities have neither confirmed nor denied the letters' authenticity, according to Breitbart's reporting.
Retired FBI supervisory agent Jason Pack, who has closely followed the case, offered his own read on the ransom note's tone. "People who have leverage do not apologize. They demand," Pack said, casting doubt on whether the note's author had genuine knowledge of Nancy's fate.
Pack also told Fox News Digital that the sheer volume of digital evidence means the case should not be written off.
"If the sheriff says they have that much DNA and all of that video, then I don't think you can call it cold until they've rectified those leads one way or the other."
He estimated there are "likely terabytes worth of digital evidence in the case" and thousands of leads to run down, including "every device on the phone tower and their Wi-Fi router." Pack also pointed to the pressure building on anyone involved in the crime: the risk of being turned in by an accomplice on one side, and the weight of a $1.2 million reward on the other.
The investigation's most visible moment came in early February, when FBI Director Kash Patel announced that agents had recovered cached recordings from Nancy's Nest doorbell camera. The footage, which showed a masked, armed individual outside her home on the night she vanished, had been facing imminent deletion in a back-end Google system. Patel made the video public on February 10.
The release triggered a flood of public tips. Newsmax reported that a person was detained for questioning the same day during a traffic stop south of Tucson. The Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed the detention, and law enforcement prepared to search a location in Rio Rico, Arizona, connected to the individual.
Patel said at the time: "Without polluting the investigation, I will say we have made substantial progress in these last 36-48 hours, thanks to the technical capabilities of the FBI and our partnerships." The Washington Examiner reported that the person of interest was detained during the traffic stop and questioned in connection with Nancy's disappearance.
But that momentum stalled. No arrest followed. No charges were filed. And in the months since, the public has heard little from investigators about what, if anything, came of that detention or the doorbell camera footage.
The silence has not gone unnoticed. Republican congressional candidate Daniel Butierez launched a formal recall effort against Sheriff Nanos over his handling of the investigation, Just The News reported. Butierez needs roughly 120,000 signatures within 120 days to force a recall vote.
Butierez framed the effort as bipartisan. "He has been an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case," Butierez said. "Everyone's pretty disgusted, Democrats and Republicans."
His claim of broad dissatisfaction finds support inside Nanos's own department. The Pima County Sheriff's Department issued a unanimous vote of no confidence against Nanos, a striking rebuke from the rank and file of the agency he leads.
The case has also attracted a circus of online spectators. Deputies were called to Nancy Guthrie's home on February 22 after volunteer searchers and several livestreamers walked onto the property carrying a shovel. Three YouTubers were later arrested for public nuisance and obstructing a thoroughfare while streaming outside the home. The sheriff's department said it had issued warnings, posted no-trespassing signs, and handed out citations before making arrests, but "some individuals continued to disregard the law."
Nancy Guthrie is 84 years old. She relies on specific medication and has a pacemaker, according to the Washington Examiner's reporting. Every week that passes without resolution raises the stakes for her survival.
Investigators scoured neighborhoods surrounding Nancy's home and the nearby house of her daughter Annie for video evidence of a suspect or suspect vehicle. The FBI tip line, 1-800-CALL-FBI, and an anonymous reward line at 520-88-CRIME remain active. The total reward stands at $1.2 million after Savannah Guthrie added $1 million of her own money in February.
Sheriff Nanos did not immediately respond to follow-up questions from Fox News Digital. His public posture remains one of measured confidence. But confidence without visible progress is a hard sell to a family in agony, a department that has turned against its own leader, and a public that has watched this case go from national emergency to prolonged silence.
An 84-year-old woman has been missing for half a year. Sorting through evidence is not the same as solving a case, and the people of Pima County deserve to know the difference.
