A retired lieutenant with the Arizona Department of Public Safety now says he believes investigators may have deliberately avoided pursuing a Mexico connection in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, because acknowledging it would have forced the case into federal hands.
Dave Smith, a law enforcement consultant and former state officer, told Fox News Digital that the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie may have been taken across the border after her believed abduction from her Tucson home in the early hours of Feb. 1. The border town of Nogales sits only about 60 miles from Guthrie's neighborhood, a drive of roughly an hour.
Smith's theory aligns with a growing body of criticism aimed at the Pima County Sheriff's Department and its handling of the case from the very first hours. FBI Director Kash Patel has publicly stated the bureau was kept out of the investigation for four days. Sheriff Chris Nanos disputes that account. And months into the search, Nancy Guthrie has not been found, no suspect has been charged, and a reward exceeding $1.2 million remains unclaimed.
Smith did not mince words about why the Mexico possibility matters. He framed it as both a geographic reality and a jurisdictional trigger.
"My first thought is always Mexico in a major crime, because it's a great haven, and it's hard for us to follow up on. But in this case, obviously there was [somebody was taken with intent]. And I think that that's why we need to wonder, perhaps, was she taken to Mexico?"
He went further, offering what he called a "personal theory" about why the angle was not pursued early on.
"My personal theory is, if Mexico was suspected, that would make it a federal investigation. There seemed to be a great deal of effort to keep the feds out of this case. And the best way to do it was to deny any possibility of interstate or international transport of the person's body or kidnapped."
That is a serious accusation from a retired state law enforcement officer, not a cable-news pundit, but someone with professional experience in Arizona criminal investigations. And the timeline gives it weight.
In February, Sheriff Nanos told reporters the investigation had not developed firm evidence that Guthrie was taken over the border. Days later, Fox News Digital reported that the FBI had contacted Mexican authorities in connection with the search. The FBI, in other words, was already treating the cross-border possibility as real enough to act on, even as the local sheriff was publicly waving it off.
The dispute between Patel and Nanos over the FBI's early role has become one of the defining fault lines of the case. Patel has said the bureau was sidelined despite being ready to assist immediately.
Speaking on Sean Hannity's podcast, the FBI director laid out the situation bluntly:
"What we, the FBI, do is say, 'Hey, we're here to help. What do you need?' What can we do? And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation."
Nanos pushed back in a written statement, insisting that "coordination" with the FBI "began without delay." He added that an FBI Task Force member "was also notified and present at that scene working alongside our personnel."
But the evidence dispute didn't stop at access. It extended to the handling of physical evidence, specifically a hair sample recovered early in the probe. Patel said the FBI had a fixed-wing aircraft on the ground, ready to transport the sample for rapid analysis at the bureau's Quantico lab.
"And they said, 'we're sending it to Florida,' and then, I don't know, 60 days. They have jurisdiction, so it's their call."
The sheriff's department chose its own preferred private lab in Florida. Eleven weeks passed before that lab shared the sample with the FBI for more advanced testing. Patel said the FBI could have completed the work "within days."
"Our lab's just better than any other private lab out there, and we didn't get a chance to do that."
Nanos countered that the Pima County lab and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico "have worked in close partnership from the outset and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence." Readers can judge for themselves whether an eleven-week delay on a hair sample in a suspected kidnapping qualifies as close partnership.
The early missteps extended beyond lab disputes. Fox News Digital reported that the crime scene at Guthrie's home had been briefly released before the FBI arrived, allowing journalists and even delivery drivers to walk onto the front porch where blood spatter had been found.
That detail alone should concern anyone who has watched a single episode of a crime procedural, let alone anyone with actual investigative training. Blood evidence at Guthrie's front door was a central piece of the physical record, and the integrity of that scene matters enormously.
A New York Post report cited an anonymous law enforcement source who said rookie Arizona officers initially assumed Guthrie had "wandered off" and pursued the wrong theory during the first two days. The source claimed the early investigation was run like a search-and-rescue operation rather than a potential criminal abduction.
"So they rushed to that judgment, stayed with that judgment, and then ran this investigation as if it were a search-and-rescue issue, as opposed to a possible criminal issue."
That same source told NewsNation's Brian Entin that there is still no direct suspect in the case, despite surveillance footage showing a masked man near Guthrie's home the night she vanished.
Smith described the Tucson landscape as a natural obstacle to any investigation. The valley is built around arroyos, dry washes that run between neighborhoods like alleys through the desert.
"This is literally your green belt here, only instead of parks and things like the rest of the nation has, we have this wonderful desert area. But again, it works between houses. It's like a giant alley through the neighborhoods."
He warned that physical evidence degrades fast in that environment. Rain washes away footprints. The sun destroys biological material.
"The evidence is transitory. Once it rains, your footprints go away, the sun is hard on other forms of evidence and frankly this is a tough place to investigate crimes."
That reality makes early investigative speed even more important, and makes the four-day delay in FBI involvement, the eleven-week wait on the hair sample, and the premature release of the crime scene all the more consequential.
Smith also painted the border crossing at Nogales as a one-way door. On the Arizona side, a relatively small town. Cross into Mexico, and you enter an urban area of 300,000 people. Earlier FBI efforts focused on locations near Guthrie's home, but Smith's point is that investigators may have been looking in the wrong direction from the start.
The investigation has produced leads, but none that stuck. Two men were briefly detained and later released. No charges were filed against them.
A joint SWAT and FBI operation on Feb. 14 executed a search warrant at a Tucson home about two miles from Guthrie's residence. Three people, two men and their mother, were detained. A gray Range Rover driver was separately stopped, questioned, fingerprinted, and had the vehicle searched and towed. The sheriff's department said at the time that because the investigation was joint, "at the request of the FBI, no additional information is currently available."
Just the News reported that the Pima County Sheriff's Department detained an individual for questioning during a traffic stop south of Tucson, just hours after the FBI released surveillance photos of a potential subject. Investigators also found that Guthrie's doorbell camera had been disconnected early on Feb. 1, with software data showing movement at the home minutes later.
The FBI teamed up with Google to recover video from Guthrie's Nest doorbell system, which showed a masked suspect on her front steps. The doorbell hardware itself appears to have been removed.
The Washington Examiner reported that all of Nancy Guthrie's siblings and their spouses have been formally cleared as suspects. Sheriff Nanos stated plainly: "The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case." Investigators are now examining Walmart sales records tied to the suspect's backpack and clothing and analyzing a glove found near the home for DNA evidence.
Investigators have said they believe they know the motive behind the kidnapping, though that information has not been made public. Meanwhile, anonymous tips claiming Nancy may be in Mexico have continued to flow in, tips the sheriff's office has characterized as dubious, even as the FBI was quietly reaching out to Mexican authorities.
Dave Smith's theory remains just that, a theory. He acknowledged as much. But it is a theory grounded in geography, proximity to the border, and a pattern of local decision-making that kept federal resources at arm's length during the most critical hours of the investigation.
Three months after Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, the case has yielded few answers. No suspect has been charged. The reward sits above $1.2 million. The family is urging anyone with information to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.
The open questions are damning enough without embellishment. Why was the crime scene released before the FBI arrived? Why did the hair sample sit in a Florida lab for eleven weeks when the FBI had a plane on the ground? Why was the Mexico angle publicly dismissed by local authorities even as federal agents were contacting Mexican officials?
If there is a good-faith explanation for all of this, the people of Pima County, and an 84-year-old woman's family, deserve to hear it. So far, all they've gotten is a jurisdictional turf dispute and a trail going cold in the desert sun.
