TUSCON, Ariz. - Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said that his department did not recover a glove from Nancy Guthrie's home and rejected reports of friction between his office and the FBI.
"We have no glove. We never found a glove on that property," Nanos told Fox News Correspondent Matt Finn in an interview Friday.
Nanos also forcefully denied claims that his department has not been cooperating with federal authorities.
"That's absolutely crazy," he said when asked about reports that he was reluctant to involve the FBI. "Why would we be reluctant to get all the partners who have great resources and offer them to us?"
He added: "We don't hold information from anybody that's going to help us. Why would we do that? There are no egos here. This is all about finding Nancy."
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Nanos said he contacted the FBI the next working day after Guthrie went missing and said that federal agents are embedded with his team.
"They sit right next to the FBI. Come to my office, and I'll show you - they're sitting right there with my team," he said. "They are there every minute of the day, and they want to find her."
On the handling of evidence, Nanos defended his department's decision to use a long-standing private lab rather than splitting evidence between facilities, including the FBI's crime lab in Quantico, Virginia.
He said the Guthrie family DNA markers and other swabs were already sent to that lab early in the investigation, making it more efficient to continue using the same facility.
"Why split your evidence to two different labs that could create a conflict, but more importantly, it adds that additional step?" he said. "This lab has this piece; this lab has that piece. Now they've got to converge those two pieces to make an elimination or identification. No, just send it to one lab, let's go."
"They're both great labs. They both have great equipment and smart people. We trust the FBI's crime lab. We've used them before. But in this case, we just started with this lab," he said. "It's just that simple."
Regarding ransom notes, Nanos said the FBI is taking the lead.
"All the ransom stuff we've given to the FBI - they're the experts on that," he said. "It would be very inappropriate for me to comment on something that I told them to do."
Authorities "believe it's a kidnapping," Nanos said, while saying that investigators are considering all possibilities.
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"You always consider all possibilities," he said. "But yeah, the obvious is what? It is an obvious kidnapping."
When asked whether anyone has been ruled out, Nanos said investigators may deprioritize individuals but remain open to revisiting leads.
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"Nobody's really ever eliminated," he said.
The sheriff also rejected criticism that investigators released the crime scene too soon.
"We remove the evidence, we swab evidence, we take evidence, and we go," he told Finn. "We got all the evidence that was there to gather."
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Cleaning blood from a scene, he added, "is not what we do."
Nanos said deputy vehicles currently stationed outside the home are there at the family's request for security.
Those cars "are there because the family said they can't - they don't want to be at the house and they've asked, can we provide security, so nobody breaks into the home," he said.
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Jan. 31, 2026
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