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FBI Director Kash Patel criticized local authorities for their handling of the Nancy Guthrie missing person’s investigation, stating that his agency was initially kept “out of the loop.”
Patel voiced his criticism during an appearance on the “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” podcast that aired Tuesday. He said the FBI was sidelined by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for four days as time was of the essence in the first days of Guthrie’s disappearance.
“What we, the FBI, do is say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help. What do you need?’” Patel told Hannity. “What can we do? And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation.”
Patel said the bureau was prepared to act quickly on key evidence but was not given the opportunity to do so. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos opted to have DNA evidence sent to a private lab in Florida rather than to the FBI lab in Quantico for testing.
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“I had a fixed-wing aircraft on the ground ready to move it immediately through the night,” he said. “And they said, ‘we’re sending it to Florida,’ and then, I don’t know, 60 days. They have jurisdiction, so it’s their call.”
He said the decision to send evidence to a private lab instead of the FBI’s facility delayed the potential for faster analysis.
“We would have analyzed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information. Our lab’s just better than any other private lab out there, and we didn’t get a chance to do that,” Patel said. “So I understand everybody’s frustrations on that.”
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He added: “The first 48 hours of anyone’s disappearance are the most critical.”
In response, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said that decisions regarding evidence processing were made on-scene based on operational needs.
“The laboratory utilized by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico have worked in close partnership from the outset and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence,” Sheriff Nanos said in a statement following Patel’s podcast interview.
“A member of the FBI Task Force was also notified and present at that scene working alongside our personnel. The FBI was promptly notified by both our department and the Guthrie family,” the statement added. “While the FBI Director was not on scene, coordination with the Bureau began without delay.”
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Once FBI agents were granted access, they worked with Google to pull cached data from a doorbell camera system to recover key footage that might have otherwise been lost.
Guthrie went missing from her Tucson, Arizona, home on Feb. 1. Investigators have followed up on dozens of leads, but she remains missing.
