The Pima County sheriff is denying there is a turf war between the FBI and his office.
Sheriff Chris Nanos told KVOA he is not withholding evidence in the case of Nancy Guthrie, the Tucson, Arizona, woman who is missing. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie is her daughter.
Fox News reported Nanos said the allegations are “not even close to the truth.”
The outlet was told by a federal law enforcement source Nanos was restricting the FBI from obtaining key evidence in Guthrie’s disappearance.
The evidence requested by the FBI includes a glove and DNA found inside the 84-year-old’s home, according to information reported by Reuters.
Federal officials have asked Nanos for the items so they could be processed at the FBI’s national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
Nanos has insisted on sending the evidence for testing at a private lab in Florida, according to the source.
Nanos told KVOA the lab in Florida has been working with the sheriff’s department for years and is analyzing DNA profiles from the crime scene.
He said there were discussions with the FBI on Thursday morning about possibly sending gloves to the FBI’s lab, the station reported.
“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.
