The president of the Pima County deputies union says the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case was hobbled from the start by an inexperienced lead detective and a sheriff whose leadership failures left critical investigative steps undone.

Sergeant Aaron Cross, who leads the Pima County Deputies Organization, told TMZ that the detective assigned to lead the Guthrie investigation had never worked a homicide before being placed on the case. Cross said the detective was promoted to sergeant roughly three years ago, moved quickly from patrol to an inside assignment, and then landed in the homicide unit with little preparation.

"Command, for whatever reason, decided that despite the fact that he hadn't been in homicide before, he was the right person for that unit," Cross said. "It takes a while to learn the ropes."

Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was last seen on the evening of January 31 after family members dropped her at her Tucson-area home. She has not been found. Cross directed his criticism squarely at Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, whose office is responsible for the investigation. Nanos could not immediately be reached for comment.

Cross describes a crime scene released in a single day

Cross's allegations go well beyond the staffing decision. He told TMZ that the crime scene at Guthrie's home was released back to the family far too quickly, by his account, the very next day.

"In my opinion, and the opinions of other detectives and many people in the community, the scene was just given up so quickly. I think the next day it was given back to the family."

In a kidnapping case involving an elderly woman with serious health conditions, that timeline raises obvious questions about whether forensic teams had enough time to process the scene thoroughly. DNA tests confirmed that blood found on Nancy Guthrie's front porch belonged to her, and a ransom note later sent to a Tucson television station included specific details about the home, a floodlight, an Apple Watch, that investigators believe only the kidnapper could have known.

Cross also described a breakdown in basic case management. Detectives were duplicating each other's work because no one was accurately tracking who had already been interviewed.

"The issue was that there was a lot of duplication of work because we weren't accurately tracking who had been spoken to."

That kind of disorganization in a high-profile missing persons case is not a minor procedural hiccup. It means witnesses may have been contacted multiple times while others were missed entirely. For a department handling a case that drew national attention from the moment Savannah Guthrie's name became attached to it, the failure to maintain a basic interview log is difficult to explain.

No posters, no street canvassing, one billboard on the freeway

Perhaps the most striking part of Cross's account is what he says the department did not do. He described a near-total absence of public outreach in Tucson, the city where the crime occurred and where leads would most likely surface.

"If you drove to Tucson right now, save for a single billboard along the freeway, you would have no idea that the crime even happened."

Cross said there were no posters or reward pamphlets being distributed, aside from the efforts of "a few YouTubers who took that upon themselves recently." For a case now more than six months old, that level of public-facing inactivity is difficult to square with the department's own statements about the investigation's urgency.

He also pointed to the elimination of street detective units, teams that once worked Tucson's criminal networks for tips. Cross described a process that used to be standard practice in cases like this one.

"What we would often do is have the street detectives, those units that used to exist, go out, kick the bushes, and rattle cages frequently until something turned up. Because, you know, the bad guys talk to each other, by and large."

Cross emphasized that Tucson's size makes it uniquely suited to that kind of ground-level intelligence work. "What people need to understand about Tucson is that it's kind of a big little city, and there's one degree of separation from everybody here," he said. Without those units in place, an entire avenue of investigation, the kind that depends on pressure and persistence rather than lab results, appears to have gone unused.

Savannah Guthrie has publicly pleaded with her mother's kidnappers to make contact, saying in one message: "We are ready to talk. However, we live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated. We need to know without a doubt that she is alive and that you have her."

Ransom notes and an investigation Nanos insists is not cold

The case has produced disturbing evidence that the public is only now seeing in full. On July 31, the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI's Phoenix Field Office released two ransom notes sent to KOLD-TV, a Tucson CBS affiliate, in the days after Guthrie's disappearance. The first, sent February 2, demanded that Savannah Guthrie pay a ransom in bitcoin by February 9 or her mother would be killed.

The second note, sent February 6, changed the story entirely. It claimed Nancy Guthrie had died of a heart-related condition shortly after being taken and was "buried in nature." The writer claimed they "did not fully grasp the seriousness of her physical condition" and "never intended to hurt her." No physical proof of captivity or death has been provided. Authorities released the notes hoping the public might recognize distinctive linguistic patterns in the writing.

The case has also drawn attention from anonymous tipsters claiming to possess video of the alleged kidnapper, though those leads have produced complications of their own.

Sheriff Nanos, for his part, has pushed back against suggestions the case has gone cold. At the six-month mark, he told reporters the investigation remained active, with a joint FBI-Sheriff's task force analyzing DNA, digital, and video evidence alongside thousands of tips. "The question was asked of me: Is this case cold? It is not cold. We have a lot of evidence that our scientific labs are working," Nanos said. He added that investigators were getting "closer" every day to identifying a suspect.

But Cross's account raises a pointed question: closer to what? If the early investigative steps were as disorganized as he describes, an inexperienced lead, a crime scene released within 24 hours, no coordinated interview tracking, no street-level canvassing, and almost no public outreach, then the foundation on which six months of subsequent work rests may itself be compromised.

A $176 million lawsuit adds to Nanos's troubles

Cross's allegations land on a sheriff already facing serious legal exposure. Nanos was recently hit with a $176 million lawsuit alleging dangerous incompetence on a separate, unspecified case. The details of that suit were not disclosed in Cross's interview, but the dollar figure alone signals that the complaints about Nanos's leadership extend well beyond the Guthrie investigation.

Cross also referenced tension between local investigators and the FBI, calling it "well known" that some in the department harbored animosity toward the federal agency. He stopped short of saying that friction directly impaired the Guthrie case, but in a joint investigation where cooperation between local and federal teams is essential, even the appearance of institutional rivalry is a problem. Nanos himself has disputed claims by FBI Director Kash Patel that the Sheriff's Department delayed notifying the bureau, insisting federal agents were on the scene from day one.

Meanwhile, investigators issued a BOLO alert for Coral Michelle Smith, a 40-year-old woman wanted for kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in an incident that occurred just 6.8 miles from Nancy Guthrie's home. Authorities have not established any connection between Smith and the Guthrie case, but Smith's extensive criminal history, including a prior kidnapping charge and a residential robbery conviction involving a minor, drew public attention given the proximity.

The broader pattern is what matters. An anonymous emailer has refused to share claimed video evidence in the case, citing fears about metadata exposure. Ransom notes sat unreleased for months. And the one law enforcement insider willing to speak publicly is describing an investigation that lacked basic organizational discipline from the start.

Cross attributed the investigative failures to decisions that he said were "almost unheard of" before Nanos took office. That framing, from the president of the deputies' own union, amounts to a vote of no confidence in the sheriff's management of the department's most high-profile case. Other cold cases across the country have eventually been solved through persistent, methodical work. Whether this one can overcome the handicaps Cross describes remains an open question.

Nancy Guthrie's family deserves answers. They also deserve to know that the people responsible for finding those answers were up to the job from the beginning. On that count, the sergeant who represents the department's own deputies says they were not.