Arizona Sheriff Clarifies Guthrie Family Members, Including Spouses, Have Been Cleared as Suspects in Nancy Guthrie Disappearance

The Arizona sheriff investigating the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie‘s mother, Nancy Guthrie, has a message for those who think that her family, including spouses of family members, is behind the elder Guthrie’s disappearance. They’re not.

“To be clear…the Guthrie family – to include all siblings and spouses – has been cleared as possible suspects in this case,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement released Monday. “The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case.”

The statement continues: “To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel. The Guthrie family are victims plain and simple … please, I’m begging you the media to honor your profession and report with some sense of compassion and professionalism.”

The statement comes in the wake of Ashleigh Banfield reporting shortly after Nancy Guthrie was declared missing that her son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, one of the last people to see the elder Guthrie before she vanished, “may be” the “prime suspect” in the alleged kidnapping.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos previously spoke out against Banfield’s reporting, without mentioning her by name, in a press conference just days after explosive report, which was later picked up by TMZ and other outlets.

“Nobody’s eliminated, but we just really don’t have enough to say, ‘This is our suspect, this is our guy, we know — or our gal.’ We don’t know that,” Nanos said. “And it’s really kind of reckless to report that someone is a suspect when they could very well be a victim.”

He added, “To the media, I plead with you to be careful of what it is we put out there, because we don’t have anybody here listed as a suspect, and you could actually be doing some damage to the case — but you can do some damage to that individual too. Social media is kind of an ugly world sometimes.”

The day of the press conference, the producer of Banfield’s podcast, Drop Dead Serious, where she first made the claims about Cioni, told The Hollywood Reporter that Banfield “stands by her reporting” and “her ironclad source.”

Banfield has continued to defend her reporting, telling Dan Abrams on his SiriusXM program Thursday, “I can tell you that my source every day since has stood by that reporting. And that is the thinking as of the day after Mrs. Guthrie was reported missing.”

She later added, “Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed. But I will say this: the day after I did that report, my source said, ‘Things have really tightened up.’ … The folks in the Sheriff’s Department are worried about retaliation because of the leak. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, if it’s not true, there wouldn’t be any worry,’ you know?”

Nanos also conducted a fresh round of media interviews in recent days, in which he repeatedly indicated that no one had been cleared as a suspect. In one interview, with The New York Times, Nanos said it might take “months or years” to find Nancy Guthrie.

“But we won’t quit,” he added. “We’re going to find Nancy. We’re going to find this guy.”

Elsewhere Monday, President Donald Trump told The New York Post that he wants the Justice Department to seek the death penalty if Nancy Guthrie is killed. The president said Nancy Guthrie’s alleged abductors would face “very, very severe — the most severe” federal consequences if Nancy Guthrie is found dead. When asked specifically if that meant the DOJ would request the death penalty, Trump said, “The most, yeah — that’s true.”

Over the weekend, the FBI said that a glove containing DNA found about two miles from Nancy Guthrie’s house appears to match those worn by the person shown outside of her front door in surveillance video from the night she disappeared.

The bureau received preliminary DNA results Saturday and is waiting for official confirmation. On Sunday night, Savannah Guthrie also posted a new video to Instagram telling whoever abducted her mother or anyone who knows where she is, “It is never too late to do the right thing,” Guthrie said. “And we are here. And we believe in the essential goodness of every human being, that it’s never too late.”

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing on Sunday, Feb. 1, after she didn’t show up at a friend’s house to watch a livestream of church service from Savannah Guthrie’s New York church. A day later, local authorities said they believed she was abducted.

In the days since Nancy Guthrie disappeared, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have released multiple video messages pleading for their mother’s return with at least one saying that they’d received a message from the alleged kidnapper and were willing to pay to bring her home.

The FBI said Thursday that they believe the man shown in the photos and videos released Tuesday is between 5’9″ and 5’10” with an average build and is wearing a black, 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack.