The garrulous Arizona sheriff who has failed to find Savannah Guthrie’s missing mother has been spending more time pumping iron at the gym than at his desk, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Chris Nanos — the embattled lawman of Pima County leading the hunt for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie — was spotted at his office in Tucson just twice for a leisurely seven hours a day between Friday and Tuesday this past week.
Nancy, meanwhile, has been missing for 46 days — with Nanos and his deputies having yet to identify a suspect or otherwise meaningful lead in the elusive disappearance case.
The 70-year-old Dem, who at first endeared America with his tearful pleas for help, only to begin to contradict himself through public interviews as the case began to languish, hit the gym four times during the five day period, The Post has learned.
He has been seen cruising out of his $850,000 manse in a gated community on the outskirts of Tucson in his flashy, newer model Corvette Stingray — white to match the color of his hair — for his roughly 90-minute workouts.
Criticism ramping up as case gets colder
The floundering Democrat has been under the microscope for his handling of the Guthrie case — including criticism that he’s been sending the wrong messages to the public about the case.
He’s also been panned for releasing Nancy’s Catalina Foothills home as a crime scene too quickly in the early days of her disappearance, using a private DNA analysis company instead of working more closely with the FBI, and not deploying critical resources like a search plane or cadaver-sniffing dogs.
Nanos is now facing a recall effort after critics branded his handling of the Guthrie case “an embarrassment” for the county.
He has insisted to NBC — “Today” show host Savannah’s network — that “investigators are definitely closer” to finding out who abducted Nancy from her home in the dead of night on Feb. 1.
Despite that, signs are piling up that the case has gone cold — and fading out of the public eye.
Nanos taking his foot off the gas?
A source close to the Guthrie family said Savannah and her brother and sister are still working with investigators — even as it appears Nanos has taken his own foot off the gas.
He was a no-show at work last Friday — and only left his house over the weekend to head to the gym.
Earlier this week, he arrived at the office, about 20 miles south of his sprawling home, just after 9 a.m. and left around 4 p.m., taking off in either his $70,000 convertible or his other car, a Ford Explorer.
Meanwhile, with the case now in its seventh week, the FBI has been busy re-canvassed Nancy’s neighborhood, hunting for footage from two specific dates prior to her kidnapping, NewsNation’s Brian Entin reported this week.
The reputable journalist said he’s finally returning home after being told there were no imminent leads.
Mixed messages in the media
The locquacious lawman has been relishing the limelight since Nancy’s Feb. 1 disappearance, giving interview after interview with oftentimes confusing or contradicting information.
Nanos and representatives for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
“The sheriff chooses to deal with the media in a bit of a haphazard way,” Pima County-based Betsy Brantner Smith of the National Police Association told The Post.
“Normally, in a case like this, you would see regular press conferences, and it would be the sheriff or his designated person, and then somebody designated from the FBI — usually a public information officer or something like that,” she said.
When speculation ramped up that Savannah’s brother-in-law, Tomasso Cioni, was potentially a prime suspect, Nanos refused to rule him out.
Nanos was forced to publicly clear the entire Guthrie family more than a week later.
Savannah is said to be “livid” over the false claims that’s served as a distraction to the case.
Last month, after images from Nancy’s doorbell camera emerged, Nanos ominously suggested that Nancy could’ve been kidnapped in “revenge for something.” He did not elaborate.
And, just last week, he claimed he knew why the suspect “targeted” Nancy – warning that he could “absolutely” strike again in the largely retirement community, without giving more details.
“We believe we know why he did this, and we believe that it was targeted, but we, we can’t, we’re not 100% sure of that,” Nanos told NBC News.
Nanos has not responded to numerous requests for interviews since the case began.
“The sheriff speaks to whoever he wants to speak to at that moment, which is just not the way that law enforcement should be doing things,” Smith said.
The timeline of the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mom:
“He recently made a statement that, yes, he believes Nancy was personally targeted, but then he made another statement saying that there is still a danger to anybody living in the county, and that you could be next,” she said.
“Here in Pima County, we have a lot of terrified elderly residents. I was just talking to a friend of mine whose mother is in her 90s, and the mom is petrified that the man that she heard about on the news is going to come and get her,” Smith said.
“That was very irresponsible.”
Shunning help from the feds
Nanos has also been forced to address concerns that he wasn’t playing nice with the FBI – after sending DNA evidence to a local lab in Florida, instead of the agency’s top-of-the-line facility in Quantico, Va.
“Actually, the FBI just wanted to send the one or two they found by the crime scene, closest to it — mile, mile and a half … I said ‘No, why do that? Let’s just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist.’ They agreed, makes sense,” Nanos told KVOA-TV.
DNA recovered from Nancy’s home does not match her, her family members, or people who worked in her home.
Critics have said Nanos’ decision is detrimental to ever finding Nancy.
“When time is of the essence with a missing person who’s likely been kidnapped, it’s challenging because you can’t wait for multiple agencies to orchestrate interagency cooperation,” former FBI agent Michael Harrigan told The Post.
“Agencies have begun contracting with these private labs because of the backlog in state, local, or federal DNA labs. Labs have been overwhelmed, especially due to the move to cold cases, historic missing person cases, and sexual assault cases. There’s a crush of DNA examinations to be done,” he added.
“Somebody’s got to take the lead and get this stuff done because she could be alive. Pima County was under an incredible amount of pressure because of the time to get in there and get it done. They may not have teamed with the FBI early on, but that’s excusable since the fact is that life hangs in the balance.”
Nanos dogged by other problems
The Guthrie case is not Nanos’ only concern.
Dan Butierez, a Republican congressional candidate, has launched a recall campaign against Nanos — and has an army of volunteers working to gather the 120,000 signatures required to force a vote.
Butierez told The Post that ordinary sheriff’s deputies have wanted to oppose Nanos but were afraid of repercussions.
Rank-and-file police officers in Pima County reportedly issued a vote of no confidence in the sheriff on Friday.
“I would encourage people to separate the leadership from the ‘boots on the ground’ cops. Just because you have a lousy leader doesn’t mean you’re a lousy cop,” said Smith, who served as a police officer in Chicago for over two decades before moving to Arizona.
Additionally, Nanos, who was elected in 2024, faces a $1.3 million lawsuit from an inmate at the Pima County jail.
He’s also under investigation for previous suspensions from duty that he is accused of withholding from the public.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department also did not return messages from The Post.
— Sara Nathan contributed additional reporting.
https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/us-news/nancy-guthrie-sheriff-chris-nanos-logging-short-days-in-office-as-case-languishes/
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