Six months into the search for Nancy Guthrie, a new detail is raising questions not about her abductor, but about the man leading the investigation.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News in an interview Thursday, "I have nothing to indicate she's dead. I don't have a body. I don't have a burial site. I don't have any note." One day later, his own office released the two ransom notes covered in JubileeCast's earlier report - one of which stated plainly that Guthrie had died shortly after being taken.
The notes were not new. They had originally been sent to a local Tucson CBS affiliate back in February, just after Guthrie's disappearance. Sheriff's officials said they had held off on releasing them for months, worried that confirming her possible death might cause the public to lose interest in the case. By Friday, they had reversed course, hoping public release might jog someone's memory of the writer's distinctive phrasing.
Retired investigator Lisa Miller, who has followed the case closely, compared the strategy to the 1995 release of the Unabomber's manifesto - the writing sample that ultimately led Ted Kaczynski's own brother to recognize his style and tip off the FBI. Whether the Guthrie notes, far shorter than Kaczynski's 35,000-word manifesto, carry enough distinctive language to spark a similar breakthrough remains to be seen.
Sheriff Nanos has not addressed the discrepancy between his Thursday comments and Friday's release directly. The department has faced mounting scrutiny over its handling of the case in recent months, and this latest inconsistency is unlikely to quiet it.
Through it all, the Guthrie family's posture hasn't shifted. Savannah Guthrie closed her own message with "we need your prayers, we need your kindness" rather than frustration at investigators. As the case enters its seventh month, that steadiness remains the one constant in a story defined by uncertainty.
Related Article: Sheriff's Office Releases Ransom Notes Six Months After Her Disappearance
