Troubling New Details Revealed in Nancy Guthrie Investigation

The investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping may have been hobbled from the start by inexperienced homicide detectives, friction with the FBI, and a decision to give the family control of the crime scene too soon, according to a local law enforcement union leader.

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Sgt. Aaron Cross, president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, detailed what he believes went wrong in the case in an interview with TMZ

The disappearance of Guthrie, 84, the mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, 54, remains shrouded in mystery. Authorities believe Nancy was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the early morning of Feb. 1 by a masked man whose image was captured by her door camera. Her family last saw her the previous day.

A note claiming to be from her kidnapper, who was seeking a ransom, told the family that she died of health issues, believed to be “heart-related,” soon after she was abducted.

Clues to the crime and various notes have led nowhere so far.

Cross was not involved in the probe, but as the president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, the union representing local sheriff’s deputies, he learned about the crime and the investigation.

According to Cross, the local sergeant initially put in charge of the Guthrie case had no homicide experience and had only become a sergeant in 2023.

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“He very rapidly went inside from patrol and then was assigned to homicide,” Cross explained. The two “most senior” homicide detectives had recently been transferred out of the division, he added.

The detectives who worked on the case had homicide experience, but it was only “three years or less,” which is “limited,” noted Cross, who said he considered the investigators “novice” murder detectives.

It was “almost unheard of” for detectives with so little relevant experience to work such a case, he told TMZ.

Cross also described “animosity” toward the FBI within the sheriff’s office. Yet he credited the federal agency with unearthing the door camera footage at Guthrie’s home, which ultimately captured an image of her alleged kidnapper.

Cross called the footage the “best piece of evidence we’ve had so far in this case. Frankly, I’m not sure where we’d be now without it.”

“To my knowledge,” there hasn’t been any significant new progress in the case, Cross said, though he acknowledged that he may not have access to all the details. But he complained that Sheriff Chris Nanos and the “command staff” are “hoping to solve this from behind a desk.”

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The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office for comment.