Six months after Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped from her bed, investigators have little to show beyond a trail of missteps, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report, published on 2 August 2026, lays out several possible errors by the Pima County Sheriff's Department in Arizona during the search for the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

The search began on 1 February, when deputies arrived at Nancy Guthrie's home and found dried blood on her front porch. They initially ignored it as unrelated. DNA testing later confirmed the blood was Guthrie's, and it is now believed to be part of the case, Variety reported.

Sheriff's deputies also failed to seal off the property with police tape, according to the Journal. That meant reporters, livestreamers, and Amazon and pizza delivery drivers could walk onto the porch where the blood was found.

The sheriff's department's senior pilot was demoted following a workplace complaint days before Guthrie was kidnapped. That demotion allegedly led to hours-long delays in getting a search-and-rescue plane into the air during the earliest days of the search, Variety reported, citing the Journal's findings.

The detective leading the case has his own documented history of judgment concerns. Sgt. David Stivers, head of homicide in the Pima County Sheriff's Department, was appointed to the role by Sheriff Chris Nanos. According to personal records cited by the Journal, Stivers was reprimanded for "poor judgment" two months before the Guthrie case began. He had also been blamed for delays in securing crime-scene evidence in a separate homicide investigation in which charges were later dropped for insufficient evidence, Variety reported.

The Journal reported that the search has been further complicated by bad luck and strained relations between county and federal leaders. Investigators are continuing to analyse DNA from Guthrie's property and are working to locate her pacemaker device, according to an earlier Wall Street Journal report published in February 2026.

Sheriff Chris Nanos has pushed back against the criticism. He told the Journal he can assure everybody that investigators are working hard every day with all of their partners, and that the case "is not cold," Variety reported. The Pima County Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond to Variety's request for further comment on the allegations.

In late July, Savannah Guthrie posted a video to Instagram addressing her mother's kidnappers directly and pleading for Nancy's return. The Today host's appeal came as the search entered its seventh month.

For the family of Nancy Guthrie, and for the viewers who know her daughter from morning television, the Journal's reporting raises a painful question that no one can yet answer: whether a faster, tighter response in those first critical hours might have made a difference.