FBI Director Criticizes Arizona Sheriff Over Nancy Guthrie Disappearance

The disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has become a test of institutional trust as much as a search for answers. Guthrie was reported missing from her Tucson-area home on Feb. 1, 2026, and investigators believe she was abducted in her sleep early that morning after a doorbell camera disconnected at 1:47 a.m. and software later detected a person at 2:12 a.m. Her garage door had opened around 9:48 p.m. and closed two minutes later the night before, details that have sharpened suspicions that she was targeted.

FBI Director Kash Patel escalated the dispute on May 5, saying on a podcast with Sean Hannity that the FBI had been kept out of the case for four days. Patel argued that the first 48 hours in a disappearance are the most critical and said the bureau’s laboratory in Quantico could have processed DNA evidence within days. His comments shifted public attention from the missing-person search to a broader question: whether federal officials should publicly challenge local investigators while a case is still active.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos pushed back, saying the FBI task force was notified and present the night Guthrie disappeared. He said the FBI was promptly notified by both the department and the Guthrie family and that the agencies have continued to work together on a thorough, coordinated, fact-based investigation. The split account reflects a familiar strain in high-profile cases, where each side is trying to show urgency while also defending its own decisions at the scene.

Evidence handling has been another point of tension. NBC News reported that blood found on Guthrie’s porch matched her DNA, while mixed partial DNA samples from inside the home have been harder to analyze. Nanos said the department used a private Florida lab for the work and turned to genetic genealogy to help untangle the mixed samples. ABC News reported on April 16 that the FBI was then analyzing DNA recovered from the Tucson home, after the sample had first been sent to the Florida lab. ABC also reported that as many as five labs around the country were working on the case and that Nanos told a neighborhood watch group it could take six more months to separate the DNA strands.

About two dozen Pima County and FBI investigators were still working the case in mid-April. The national attention has only intensified because Guthrie is the mother of TODAY co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, who returned to the show on April 6 after more than two months away. As the investigation continues, the public clash over timing, transparency and evidence processing has become part of the story itself, raising the stakes for agencies that must now explain not only what happened to Nancy Guthrie, but how they have handled the search.