Republican congressional candidate Daniel Butierez has initiated the recall process to remove Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos from office, citing what he called a disastrous handling of the investigation into the abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC Today co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Butierez confirmed the move to the New York Post, saying he has 500 volunteers ready to collect the roughly 135,000 signatures needed to force Nanos out. He has 120 days to gather them.
He has been an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case.
The recall effort arrives more than six weeks after Nancy Guthrie was snatched from her $1 million home in the affluent Catalina Foothills area of Tucson in the early hours of Sunday, February 1. An armed and masked man was captured on porch video. And a source close to the probe now believes it is "very unlikely" she is alive.
According to the Daily Mail, the problems with this investigation run deeper than slow progress. Multiple sources have accused Sheriff Nanos of locking down the probe, allegedly keeping key decisions confined to himself and two of his highest-ranking inner circle. A source at the sheriff's department described the situation bluntly:
This case had been at a standstill.
A recent shake-up has moved four Pima County detectives into the Tucson FBI building, effectively creating distance between the working investigators and Nanos's command staff. That change, according to the same source, is already producing results.
And while Nanos still has overall control and the ultimate say over the investigation, now he is not as involved in the day-to-day things that are being scrutinized. This is good. There will be less meddling from command staff. Few people know the inner workings of what that joint team are currently running down, but it seems like they're operating well together.
Read that again. The people closest to this investigation believe the case improved once the sheriff was pushed to the margins of his own operation. That tells you everything about how Nanos ran this from the start.
The crime scene itself was reportedly probed on four separate occasions, and sources say it was mishandled when it was opened up too quickly. One source did not mince words about the consequences:
He is a very careful suspect who did not appear to leave a huge footprint on the crime. And then the scene was mishandled when it was opened up so quickly. Who knows what forensic clues were lost.
DNA evidence is being processed at a lab in Florida, but the work is complicated by contamination. A source said the lab is "trying to accelerate technology they were due to roll out next year in order to unravel it faster" because of the mix of DNA recovered. A delay in dispatching a vital search-and-rescue aircraft has also been reported.
Perhaps the most chilling detail to emerge is the assessment of the suspect's mindset. A source close to the probe painted a picture of a kidnapper who feels untouchable:
This guy is emboldened. We've thrown everything at him, and we haven't caught him yet. He's probably watching the news and thinking, man, they're not even close to me. At least from what he's seeing. So, he's still out there and that's a big worry for folks.
Sheriff Nanos has said he believes Nancy was targeted and that the kidnapper could strike again. That warning, paired with the investigative dysfunction described by his own department, should alarm every resident of Pima County.
Meanwhile, the tipline that once fielded up to 4,000 calls a day has subsided to around two dozen, with just two people manning the phones. Ransom demand letters seeking $6 million in Bitcoin, complete with two deadlines, have been largely discounted. Sources say the general view is that those were fakes, likely assembled by scammers using details Nancy herself had shared on social media, including a video tour of her bedroom.
Savannah Guthrie, 54, returned to New York City after several weeks with her family in Tucson and was seen visiting NBC colleagues at Rockefeller Center last week. On February 24, twenty-four days into the search, she posted a video announcing a $1 million family reward and directly confronting the possibility that her mother may be dead.
It is day 24 since our mom was taken in the dark of night from her bed. And every hour and minute and second and every long night has been agony since then. Worrying for her, fearing for her, aching for her. We still believe. We still believe in a miracle. We still believe that she can come home. Hope against hope, as my sister says, we are blowing on the embers of hope.
We also know that she may be lost, she may already be gone. She may have already gone home to the lord that she loves. But we need to know where she is. We need her to come home. For that reason, we are offering a family reward of up to $1 million for any information that leads us to her recovery. Somebody knows and we are begging you to please come forward now.
No political lens changes what that video represents: a daughter pleading for her mother's life while the institution charged with finding her stumbled over its own bureaucracy.
Butierez said he took up the recall initiative because deputies within the department wanted Nanos gone but feared retaliation. He claimed that police in Pima County held a unanimous vote of no confidence in the sheriff on Friday.
I'm a congressional candidate... and I don't see Nanos messing with me.
The process works like this:
Butierez says he's aiming for around 135,000 signatures and doesn't anticipate trouble reaching the threshold. Given the fury surrounding this case, that confidence may be well-placed.
This story carries real weight because it sits at the intersection of two things conservatives understand instinctively: the duty of law enforcement to protect citizens, and the consequences when elected officials treat public office as personal fiefdom.
An 84-year-old woman was taken from her bed. The crime scene was compromised. The investigation stalled under a sheriff who allegedly hoarded control and froze out his own detectives. The suspect grew emboldened. The leads dried up. And the family was left to beg the public for help on social media while offering a million dollars of their own money.
Voters elected Chris Nanos to keep Pima County safe. If 135,000 of them now sign a petition saying he failed, that isn't politics. That's accountability working exactly as designed.