All the damning mistakes cops hunting for Nancy Guthrie appear to have made as final ransom deadline looms

Sheriff’s deputies investigating the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie have made a slew of worrying errors as the hunt for the missing 84-year-old continues. 

Guthrie was last seen alive by her son-in-law as he dropped her off at her $1m Tucson home at 9:45pm MT on January 31, investigators believe.

The alarm was raised the next morning, with efforts to find Guthrie – the mother of Today star Savannah Guthrie – subsequently escalating with no success.  

Since then, officers have continuously swept the home for clues as to what happened to Guthrie, mother of Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, uncovering blood droplets. 

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has headed the investigation into the missing 84-year-old after the alarm was raised last Sunday. 

Over a week in, no suspects have been publicly identified and two unverified ransom notes have been sent to media outlets demanding millions in Bitcoin. 

The latest demand has asked for Guthrie’s family to hand over $6 million by 5pm MT Monday evening, according to a note sent to KGUN. 

Here, the Daily Mail explores what has gone wrong in the investigation as discontent brews about the handling of the case. 

Inexperienced detectives  

Sources have revealed to the Daily Mail that the investigation is being handled by a small team of just six detectives with little relevant experience. 

While the FBI are now heavily-involved in the case, details of Pima County Sheriff’s Office’s apparent incompetence will pile further misery on Savannah and her family.

For further shocking details on how green the Guthrie investigation team is, click here to read our exclusive.  

Delayed deployment of surveillance plane

Sources close to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told the Daily Mail that Sheriff Nanos grounded a vital search-and-rescue aircraft in the hours after Guthrie’s disappearance was reported. 

The Cessna, named Survey 1, remained on the ground for much of Sunday February 1 because of staffing shortages that left it without a pilot.  

Survey 1 is equipped with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras capable of scanning vast swaths of desert terrain that could have picked up traces of the missing grandmother. 

A helicopter was deployed instead but lacked the sophisticated sensors and thermal imaging technology aboard Survey 1. 

The chopper also was not scrambled until 5pm on the Sunday that Guthrie disappeared, the alarm was raised that morning. 

Investigators say getting up into the sky earlier could have yielded a clue about who had taken Guthrie and where they’d gone. 

Crime scene left wide open to reporters 

When officers first responded to the home of Nancy, the initial response from Pima County was that they were ‘concerned’ for the elderly woman. 

Reporters who first arrived at the home in Tucson’s upscale Catalina Hills neighborhood discovered it wide open, with no crime scene tape set up.

KGUN9 reporter Andrew Christiansen found that despite multiple vehicles with the department parked up outside, none had their emergency lights on. 

It wasn’t until the day after she vanished, last Monday, that Sheriff Nanos reclassified the case as a crime and said it was believed that Nancy was kidnapped. 

The general area wasn’t blocked off and on Tuesday they handed the keys back to the Guthrie family, before returning to continue their search later that week. 

If Guthrie’s home ends up yielding further evidence, it could make it easier for a defense lawyer to have it dismissed over fears the scene was contaminated by outsiders.  

Sheriff attends basketball game amid search  

As his department’s investigation trudged into the weekend, Sheriff Nanos took time off to watch a college basketball game. 

The sheriff was spotted at the game on Saturday afternoon, the same time that Savannah and her siblings pleaded for their mother’s return in a second video. 

Nanos looked on as the Arizona Wildcats defeated Oklahoma State 47-84 inside the McKale Memorial Center in Tucson. 

One senior source inside the department told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s tone deaf while Nancy is still out there.

‘Everybody deserves, of course, their time off. It’s been a very stressful, hard, long week.

‘But given how hard detectives and search and rescue are working, including all the overtime they’re doing, it’s a poor decision and it doesn’t look good for the agency.

‘It just seems very odd given how emotional he was throughout the week during interviews, saying he believes she’s still alive and how desperate he is to find her.’

Bungled press conferences

Sheriff Nanos has taken to the podium to address the media on several occasions concerning the investigation.

In those, he has apologized for delays, walked back statements made during television interviews and acknowledged his limited experience operating under intense national scrutiny.

At one briefing, he said Guthrie was ‘harmed at the home’ and taken from her bed, before later saying he had misspoken.

On Thursday, Nanos failed to instill confidence when asked about potential suspects and motives, replying: ‘Your guess work is as good as mine.’

When asked about possible evidence issues because crime scene tape at Nancy’s house was put up and taken down several times, he replied: ‘I’ll let the court worry about it. We follow the rules of law.’ 

That flippant remark could come back to haunt Nanos if and when a suspect is arrested and their lawyer uses it to suggest they cannot have a fair trial.  

There were also questions about his professionalism at a press conference on Tuesday when the sheriff teared up while discussing details of the case.

At another moment, Nanos gave a frustrated laugh when asked for updates.  

Cops announced this week that they would not be holding any further press conferences until there were updates to be searched.

Searches of property roof and septic tank days later 

After handing the property back to the Guthrie family on Tuesday following their initial sweep, officers have returned twice to perform further searches. 

This included them searching the roof of the property twice, and probing a septic tank to the rear of Nancy’s home on Sunday. 

The search seemed to escalate on Friday when forensics teams returned for a third time to seize new evidence, a car from her garage and a camera from her roof. 

It is unclear if these items yielded any new information. If it turns out that they have, the Guthries will likely be desperate to know if that intelligence could have brought their ordeal to a conclusion more quickly.  

On every visit, investigators cordoned off the property with yellow tape then pulled it down leaving the uninhabited house unprotected each time. 

A statement followed the images of them scouring the home on Sunday, in which they said they would ‘maintain a presence’ at Guthrie’s address for ‘security reasons’. 

Greg Rogers, a 30-year FBI veteran, warned that evidence gathered during a second search could face serious legal challenges.

‘Once you let the family back in, almost anything they discover after that isn’t going to be admissible in court,’ Rogers said.

‘It causes a real chain-of-custody issue with who touched what. A good defense counsel is going to be able to eviscerate anything.’