Nancy Guthrie Update: Sheriff's Department Made Significant Changes in the Year Before Her Disappearance
Several months before Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, the Pima County Sheriff's Department went through some significant changes. According to Fox New Digital, emails sent between a reality TV production company and the department reveal that the heads of various units-including homicide and cold case-had been rotated out.
"A June 18, 2025 email from show producer Amanda Riley shows she asked for the contacts of the sergeants running several units. In a reply two days later, Capt. Robert Koumal informed her that 'the department has experienced some rotational re-assignments since last year,' and revealed that the leader of every team she'd asked about had changed," the outlet reported on Saturday, April, 25.
Prior to the Guthrie case, the department had inked a deal with Twenty Twenty Productions to film a reality television series. Per the report, filming for the show finished before Guthrie, 84, went missing. Ten episodes of the show, titled Desert Law, began airing on A&E in January 2026-one month before Guthrie's disappearance.
Fox News Digital's report comes weeks after reports that the lead detective in the Guthrie case had "never" worked a homicide case. Sheriff Chris Nanos defended the lead detective in an interview with KVOA.
"This sergeant has been the supervisor of homicide for over two years," Nanos said. "And in that time he has solved some pretty significant, very high profile cases for this area-the Reddington homicide, the Goodwill homicide-and they solved that within days."
Authorities believe that Guthrie was abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills in the middle of the night on Sunday, Feb. 1. Despite receiving thousands of tips, investigators have not been able to locate Guthrie. Additionally, authorities have not publicly named a suspect or suspects associated with the case.
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This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 6:45 AM.