“For four days we were kept out of the investigation,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a recent interview of the Nancy Guthrie case.
Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “TODAY” morning show host Savannah Guthrie, went missing from her home in the Tucson, Ariz., area in early February. She still hasn’t been found, even amid a months-long investigation that included numerous pleas from her family, hoax ransom notes and more.
According to Patel, local and state authorities – which have jurisdiction – resisted help from the FBI even though the initial hours of missing persons cases are critical. For example, he said that more security footage from the Ring doorbell camera at Guthrie’s house might have been uncovered if FBI help was accepted sooner.
While Guthrie’s home had a camera, she did not have a subscription to the Ring service. Patel said that he contacted leadership at Google to see if anything was saved from the camera, and they did indeed find an image that was shared with the public.
“Can we go into the cache; can we go into the data before its deleted and see what we can find?” he asked Google, Patel told Hannity. “That’s why you have that image, because the FBI worked with Google to put that image out.”
He said that data could have been found earlier and that more data might have been available. Patel also criticized local authorities for sending DNA samples related to the case to a lab in Florida rather than the FBI’s Quantico facility.
“We would have analyzed it within days,” Patel said, adding that “our lab is just better,” than private lab options.
In an X post, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office said Sheriff Chris Nanos, one of the local authorities on the Guthrie case, “is aware,” of the interview and Patel’s comments.
“Sheriff Nanos responded to the scene the night of the incident, providing immediate local leadership and oversight. A member of the FBI Task Force was also notified and present at that scene working alongside our personnel,” said the post. “The FBI was promptly notified by both our department and the Guthrie family. While the FBI Director was not on scene, coordination with the Bureau began without delay.”
It went on to say that: “Decisions regarding evidence processing were made on scene based on operational needs. The laboratory utilized by the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico have worked in close partnership from the outset and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence.”
Even though Guthrie remains missing, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department post said the agency remains “committed to a thorough, coordinated, and fact-based investigation and will continue working closely with our federal partners as the process moves forward.”
