SWAT Team and FBI Raid Tucson Home, Detain Three in Search for Missing 84-Year-Old Nancy Guthrie

 February 15, 2026

Law enforcement swarmed a Tucson residence in the early morning hours today, executing a search warrant and detaining three people in connection with the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie, who hasn't been seen in fourteen days.

Two men and one of their mothers were taken into custody at the home near E Orange Grove Rd & N First Ave, roughly two miles from Guthrie's house. Separately, authorities stopped the driver of a gray Range Rover in a Culver's restaurant parking lot, detained the individual for questioning and fingerprinting, then searched the vehicle and towed it.

According to Breitbart, it remains unclear whether any of those detained are suspects. Sheriff Chris Nanos told Fox News that no one involved in the raid was in custody — a statement that sits awkwardly beside Fox News Digital's own reporting that three people were, in fact, taken into custody. Nobody has reconciled the discrepancy.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department posted a brief statement on X:

"Law enforcement activity is underway at a residence near E Orange Grove Rd & N First Ave related to the Guthrie case. Because this is a joint investigation, at the request of the FBI — no additional information is currently available."

That's about as much as officials are willing to say right now. For a case that has dominated cable news and social media for two weeks, the information vacuum is striking.

What We Know — and What Keeps Shifting

Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31 at her Tucson home after having dinner with her eldest daughter and son-in-law. In the early morning hours of February 1, a suspect was captured on her doorbell camera — masked, gloved, and tampering with the device. The FBI described the individual this week as male, between 5'9" and 5'10", average build, carrying a 25-liter "Ozark Trail Hiker Pack" backpack.

Since her disappearance, multiple ransom notes from purported kidnappers have surfaced, sent to local news outlets and TMZ. Whether those notes represent genuine demands or are the work of criminal opportunists exploiting a high-profile case remains an open question.

The FBI doubled its reward to $100,000 for information leading to Guthrie's location or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance. That escalation tells you something about how seriously federal investigators are treating this.

The Sheriff Under the Microscope

If today's raid marks a turning point in the investigation, it also throws sharper light on the man who has faced mounting scrutiny over how this case has been handled from the start.

Sheriff Chris Nanos — a twice-elected Democrat — has drawn criticism on multiple fronts:

  • Allegedly releasing the crime scene too soon
  • Waiting too long to bring the FBI into the investigation
  • Attending a college basketball game last weekend while the search for an 84-year-old woman was underway

Then came the Reuters report. A federal source inside the investigation told the outlet that Nanos blocked the FBI from accessing a glove and DNA evidence found inside Guthrie's home, opting instead to send it to a private lab in Florida rather than the FBI's own lab in Quantico, Virginia. Nanos denied the report.

Take a step back and consider the picture this paints. An elderly woman vanishes. A suspect is caught on camera hours later. And the local sheriff — by multiple accounts — slow-walked federal involvement, potentially diverted critical forensic evidence away from the nation's premier crime lab, and found time for a basketball game.

None of this means Nanos is acting in bad faith. But at fourteen days and counting, the questions aren't going away. They're compounding.

When Local Control Becomes Local Obstruction

There's a familiar pattern in cases like this. Local law enforcement guards its jurisdiction, federal agencies push for access, and the person who suffers most from the turf war is the victim. The joint investigation label now attached to this case suggests the FBI has secured a seat at the table — but the question is whether that seat came early enough to matter.

Conservatives have long understood that accountability isn't just about policy — it's about competence in execution. You can have all the right resources, all the right agencies, and still fail if the person coordinating the response treats the investigation like a political asset to be managed rather than a crisis to be solved. Whether that's what happened here, the public deserves a clear answer.

Fourteen Days and an Empty Home

The facts remain stark. An 84-year-old grandmother disappeared from her own house. Someone tampered with her doorbell camera under the cover of darkness. Ransom notes have circulated. And two weeks later, law enforcement is executing search warrants at a home two miles away while the sheriff's department and the FBI can't even agree on what "in custody" means.

The reward stands at $100,000. The suspect description is public. The investigation, finally, appears to be moving with urgency.

Nancy Guthrie's family is still waiting.

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