CBS News99%
Sheriff in Nancy Guthrie case contradicted himself on ransom note 83%
8/3/2026, 5:56:54 PM
BS Summary: This video contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotion, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 33.6% saturation with 180 hits. Analysis detected 1,634 faulty-reasoning hits from 535 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 67.1% and a BS Rank of 83% (5,178 of 30,190 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 82.90% of the video peer group.
Today's show co-host Savannah Guthrie made another desperate plea to the public over the weekend for information regarding her missing mother Nancy who disappeared from her Tucson, Arizona home more than six months ago.
In a social media post, Guthrie wrote in part, quote, "We are begging for help.
We are desperate. We need someone to come forward." Last Friday, the Puma County Sheriff's Department released two notes that appear to have been sent by the same person or group believed to be Nancy Guthri's kidnapper.
They were sent to the CBS station in Tucson in February.
The second note indicated Guthrie died shortly after she was taken.
But one day before the notes were made public, Puma County Sheriff Chris Nano said this to CBS News's Jonathan Vigliotti.
>> Is Nancy Guthrie alive or based on everything that you have right now?
>> 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.
>> Anna Shakar joins us now. She covers crime for CBS News. Anna, what's going on here?
I mean, you and I note the obvious contradiction.
>> Well, he could have said, you know, Jonathan, there is this second ransom note that we are taking very seriously that indicates that Nancy Guthrie passed away and there's this admission of guilt in a way and feeling sorry about it and saying she's buried in nature.
That would have been the more upfront way of handling this. But instead, he said there's no note. and then the next day released both notes in full.
So, it's just more of the same really that we've seen from Sheriff Nanos.
He sometimes trips over his words, sometimes contradicts himself.
Uh so, it's been an interesting run uh reporting on this for the last 6 months with you.
>> Certainly, I mean, this office has been thrust into the spotlight on such a high-profile story, but why wouldn't they release the ransom notes earlier?
or maybe the fact that the hair that was found in the home was tested and DNA came back inconclusive.
They learned that in June. They just released it. Why now?
>> Well, I think hindsight's 2020 and the FBI sources I talked to, recently retired FBI agents, they're saying it's so late in the case, it actually would have been better to have released it earlier.
earlier. I think that Chris Nanos released it because one, journalists have essentially put this out and influencers have put out a lot of the content of the note.
And two, I think they ran into u leads that didn't lead anywhere.
They reached the six-month mark and they have nothing to lose.
They're desperate for that tip that cracks this case open.
They my reporting indicates they really don't know who sent these notes, who abducted Nancy Guthrie.
They don't have any good lead on an ID.
>> And they're hoping somebody can read those notes and recognize, I guess, some some syntax similarities and try and figure out
>> who did it. All right, Anna Shakar,
thank you as
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