Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos is refusing to hand over critical evidence in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie to the FBI's national crime laboratory — choosing instead to route it through a private lab in Florida at a cost of $200,000 to taxpayers.
The dispute centers on a glove and DNA recovered from inside Guthrie's Tucson home, where she vanished in the early morning hours of February 1. The FBI wants the evidence processed at its facility in Quantico, Virginia. Nanos won't allow it.
A federal law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News Digital that the sheriff is actively blocking the bureau from obtaining the physical evidence. The same source pointed to what were described as "earlier setbacks" in the investigation — setbacks that remain unexplained — and criticized Nanos for not requesting FBI assistance sooner.
Nancy Guthrie was reported missing the same day she disappeared, February 1. Nearly two weeks later, her family has no answers. What they have instead is an interagency turf war over who gets to test the evidence that might actually produce some.
The FBI can only participate in the investigation if local officials invite them in. That's standard jurisdictional protocol. But protocol becomes an obstacle when the agency with the most advanced forensic capabilities in the country is being kept at arm's length — not because of legal constraints, but because one sheriff preferred a private lab a thousand miles away.
An unnamed federal official put it plainly:
"It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute."
Urgent is an understatement. Every day that passes in a missing persons case narrows the window. Every bureaucratic delay compounds the problem. And $200,000 spent on a private Florida lab — when the FBI's Quantico facility is available and purpose-built for exactly this kind of forensic work — demands an explanation that Nanos has not provided.
The Pima County Sheriff's Office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Earlier this week, the FBI and the sheriff's office jointly released surveillance footage showing a masked suspect approaching Nancy Guthrie's front door in the moments before her disappearance. No details about the suspect's identity or description have been made public.
FBI agents canvassed homes near Guthrie's residence on February 6. By February 11, law enforcement was checking vegetation areas around the home. The FBI has increased its reward to $100,000 for information leading to Guthrie's return or an arrest.
That's the sum of what's been disclosed. The "earlier setbacks" referenced by the federal source remain a black box. The private lab in Florida hasn't been named. The nature of Pima County's contract with that lab hasn't been explained. The chain of custody for the glove and DNA evidence hasn't been detailed.
What is clear is the gap between what's available and what's being used.
Local control matters. Conservatives understand that better than anyone. County sheriffs occupy a unique and constitutionally significant role in American law enforcement, and their authority shouldn't be casually overridden by federal agencies looking to bigfoot their way into local cases.
But local authority is a tool for serving the community — not a shield against accountability. When a woman is missing, when evidence sits unprocessed, when the federal government's most sophisticated crime lab is offering its services, and the answer is "no, we'll use a private outfit in Florida for two hundred grand," the question stops being about jurisdiction. It becomes about judgment.
The federal official framed it in terms the Guthrie family would recognize:
"It's clear the fastest path to answers is leveraging federal resources and technology. Anything less only prolongs the Guthrie family's grief and the community's wait for justice."
Nanos hasn't explained why the private lab is preferable. He hasn't explained the cost. He hasn't explained the timeline. He hasn't explained the earlier setbacks. He hasn't explained much of anything — because he hasn't said a word publicly.
Silence from a public official in the middle of a high-profile missing persons case isn't discretion. It's a choice.
None of this bureaucratic maneuvering changes what matters most: Nancy Guthrie is still missing. Her family has been approaching two weeks without her. A masked figure was captured on camera walking up to her front door, and nobody has been arrested.
The FBI has put $100,000 on the table for information. It has offered its crime lab. It has agents on the ground in Tucson. The resources are there. The willingness is there.
The only thing standing between that evidence and the best forensic technology in the country is one sheriff who won't say why.
