The FBI asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for DNA evidence and a black glove recovered in connection with the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie — the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie — and he sent it to a private lab in Florida instead.
Not to the FBI's national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, with its world-class forensic capabilities. To a private contractor in Florida that the sheriff's department regularly uses. As the investigation closed in on the two-week mark with no known proof of life, the sheriff with primary jurisdiction effectively cut the FBI out of the evidence chain.
An unnamed FBI source told Reuters the move has real consequences:
"It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute."
The same source added:
"It's clear the fastest path to answers is leveraging federal resources and technology."
Pima County has reportedly spent about $200,000 sending evidence to the Florida lab. The FBI's Quantico facility — one of the most advanced forensic operations on the planet — would have processed it at no cost to the county. That's not a close call. That's a jurisdictional turf war dressed up as procedure.
Nancy Guthrie vanished in the early-morning hours of February 1 from her home in Pima County. Doorbell camera footage captured an armed, masked individual tampering with the camera around that time. Family members say she had a sound mind but suffered from limited mobility and needed daily medication to survive.
That last detail matters. Every day without resolution is a day closer to a point of no return.
DNA tests confirmed that traces of blood found on the front porch came from Nancy Guthrie. A black glove was recovered about a mile from the home. Several purported ransom notes have surfaced — delivered not to the family or law enforcement, but to news media outlets. The deadlines in those notes have lapsed. No proof of life has been provided, as The Daily Beast reports.
On Saturday, Savannah Guthrie posted a video alongside her siblings Annie and Camron, speaking directly to whoever took their mother:
"We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay."
That's a daughter on camera, offering money to her mother's captor, because the investigation hasn't given her family anything else to hold onto.
The FBI's Phoenix field office shared new details about the suspect on Thursday, describing the individual as approximately 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall with an average build, wearing a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack. The bureau is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to Nancy Guthrie's location or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved.
The doorbell camera images took more than a week to recover from what Patel described on Wednesday as "residual data located in backend systems." A week — in a case where hours matter.
On Tuesday, a man identified only as "Carlos," who described himself as a delivery driver, was brought in for questioning, and his residence was searched. He was released eight hours later. He told reporters he had no idea why he was brought in. No charges were filed.
So the public ledger of this investigation reads: one detained-and-released man who says he knows nothing, doorbell footage that took a week to extract, ransom notes sent to media rather than investigators, and critical physical evidence routed away from the FBI's best forensic tools at the sheriff's discretion.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department holds primary jurisdiction over the case. No one disputes that. The department has accepted the FBI's offer to provide assistance, which decides to bypass the FBI's crime lab all the more puzzling.
You don't accept federal help and then redirect evidence away from federal labs. That's not maintaining jurisdiction. That's maintaining control at the expense of outcomes. A woman is missing. She needs medication to survive. The family is publicly begging for her return. And the sheriff's priority is routing forensic evidence through his department's preferred vendor.
The Daily Beast contacted both the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department for comment. Neither responded. Sheriff Nanos has offered no public explanation for the decision.
Silence, in a case like this, lands differently than it does in routine jurisdictional disputes. A family is waiting. The public is watching. And the man with the evidence won't say why he sent it to Florida instead of Quantico.
Federal investigators have the resources, the technology, and the capacity to process forensic evidence faster than a private lab contracting with a county sheriff's office. That's not opinion — it's infrastructure. The FBI built Quantico specifically for cases like this.
When a missing person case reaches the two-week mark with no arrest, no proof of life, and ransom notes whose deadlines have already expired, the window for a positive outcome narrows sharply. Every institutional friction point — every evidence delay, every jurisdictional standoff — costs time that Nancy Guthrie may not have.
The FBI offered $100,000, its Phoenix field office, and its crime lab. The sheriff took the first two and rejected the third. Somewhere in Florida, a private lab is processing the evidence that might bring a 54-year-old woman's mother home.
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings aren't waiting for jurisdiction to sort itself out. They're on camera, offering to pay a stranger for their mother's life. The least the people running this investigation can do is use the best tools available.
