An 84-year-old woman has been missing for nearly two weeks, the FBI wants to test the evidence, and the local sheriff won't let them touch it.

Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff Chris Nanos is refusing to hand over a glove and DNA evidence connected to the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie to the FBI, Reuters reported Thursday. Instead of sending the forensic material to the FBI's lab in Virginia, Nanos has opted to outsource the analysis to a Florida-based contractor.

No explanation has been offered for why.

A Case Growing Colder by the Hour

As reported by the Daily Caller, Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31 and reported missing the following day. Nanos himself told CBS News he believes she was abducted — taken against her will from Arizona's second most populous county on his watch. That makes his decision to stiff-arm the federal agency with the most advanced forensic capabilities in the country all the more baffling.

An anonymous law enforcement source familiar with the case put it plainly to Reuters:

"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."

Another law enforcement official warned Reuters that the sheriff's office not granting the FBI's request to obtain the evidence "risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute."

Urgent is an understatement. Every hour that passes in a missing persons case — particularly one involving an 84-year-old woman believed to have been taken by force — narrows the window for a safe recovery. The FBI lab exists precisely for moments like this. It is faster, better equipped, and carries the full weight of federal investigative infrastructure behind it. Nanos chose a contractor in Florida instead.

A Family Left Waiting

Nancy Guthrie's daughter, "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, posted an emotional video to Instagram on Monday, pleading for the public's help:

"We believe that somehow, some way, she is feeling these prayers and that God is lifting her even in this moment and in this darkest place. We believe our mom is still out there."

She added:

"Law enforcement is working tirelessly around the clock, trying to bring her home, trying to find her. She was taken, and we don't know where, and we need your help."

Law enforcement may well be working tirelessly. But the sheriff in charge of this case is actively preventing the most capable law enforcement agency in the country from doing its part. Savannah Guthrie says her mother was taken. Her local sheriff agrees. And yet the evidence that could identify who took her sits in bureaucratic limbo, routed to a private contractor nobody has publicly named, for reasons nobody has publicly explained.

The Political Backdrop No One Can Ignore

Chris Nanos is a Democrat. He first won the Pima County sheriff's seat in 2020, narrowly defeating an incumbent Republican. He held on in 2024 by just 481 votes — a razor-thin margin in a county where Kamala Harris cruised to a 15-point victory on the same ballot. In a deep-blue county, Nanos barely survived. That's not a ringing endorsement of his leadership, even among his own voters.

None of this means his decision to block the FBI is motivated by politics. But it does raise a question that Nanos and his office have declined to answer: What possible reason could a local sheriff have for keeping federal investigators at arm's length in a case this serious?

The Daily Caller News reached out to both Nanos' office and the FBI for comment. Neither responded.

Silence from the FBI is routine. Silence from a sheriff whose jurisdiction includes an abducted 84-year-old woman — and who is actively turning away federal help — is something else entirely.

When Jurisdiction Becomes an Obstacle

There is a familiar pattern in American law enforcement where local officials cling to jurisdiction not because it serves the case, but because it serves them. Control over evidence means control over the narrative, the timeline, and the credit. Sometimes it's institutional pride. Sometimes it's incompetence dressed up as independence. And sometimes the reasons are murkier than that.

Whatever Nanos' reasoning, the result is the same: critical forensic evidence in a kidnapping case is not in the hands of the people best equipped to process it. A glove and DNA material — the kind of physical evidence that breaks cases open — are instead bound for an unnamed private lab in a different state, on a timeline no one has disclosed.

An 84-year-old woman's life may hang in the balance. Her family is begging for answers on social media. Federal investigators are ready and willing to help. And the one man standing between the evidence and the FBI's lab is a sheriff who won his last election by fewer than 500 votes and won't explain himself.

Nancy Guthrie's family deserves better than bureaucratic turf games. So does everyone in Pima County who expects their sheriff to use every tool available when a life is on the line — not just the ones he personally selects.