In 2024, Republican candidate Heather Lappin lost out on the Pima County sheriff’s seat to incumbent Democrat Chris Nanos, the man currently in charge of finding Nancy Guthrie, by 481 votes in a recount. More than 487,000 people voted in the election, making the margin of victory less than 0.1 percent.
There is no love lost between Lappin and her former boss, and you can count Lappin among those who believe Sheriff Nanos is currently bungling the Guthrie kidnapping case, which may soon be a murder case. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Lappin, a former Nanos lieutenant (literally — that was her rank), had nothing nice to say about America’s Sheriff.
“He is a tyrant,” Lappin says. “He tries to be super charming. Like when he did his quote [at the Guthrie press conference], ‘I’m not used to people hanging on my every word and trying to hold me accountable.’ And then he put his hands on his hips because he was trying to be cute. Nobody thinks you’re cute. You’re a 72-year-old man, nobody thinks you’re cute.”
OK, so maybe some of Lappin’s grievances are a little petty. But not all of them.
After her loss, Lappin says she asked to be transferred to another county department — any of them. The request was denied and she eventually relocated to Phoenix, a one-hour, 40-minute drive from Tucson, where she found new employment.
It’s been a ride. After challenging him for the sheriff’s post, Lappin claims Nanos transferred her to a corrections role at the Pima County Adult Detention Center. Lappin had no corrections experience (but 20 years as a cop on the street), and by then, the jail was a very bad place to be — even for jail.
“We had an exorbitant amount of jail death because Nanos decided to come in and fire corrections officers only for not getting the COVID vaccine,” Lappin says. “They didn’t fire deputies, they only fired corrections officers.”
Nanos lost an election for sheriff in 2016 amid a RICO investigation. He won in 2020. The same year, COVID-19 began to kill inmates, but so did the realities of a small staff, Lappin says. “[The inmates] were literally kept in these rooms, just getting food,” she adds. “That’s it — no exercise, no nothing.”
It was also difficult for the remaining corrections officers to monitor drugs coming into the prisons, she says.
In a few years, Lappin would face those challenges, the consequence of being on the ballot opposite Nanos, she contends. Her new work was hard and unfamiliar, and her nights weren’t a whole lot better than her days. Lappin says she was the target of 13 internal affairs investigations in just six months, each allegedly an effort for Nanos to discredit his political opponent.
Nanos also attempted to “intimidate” Lappin at campaign events, she claims. “He sent his two female captains to my campaign events to try to intimidate me,” Lappin says. “He’s like a mafioso, that’s what he’s like.”
“Right now, our focus is on this investigation and serving the victims and this community. Political commentary distracts from this active investigation, and it is unfortunate,” Sheriff Nanos tells THR when asked for comment on the accusations in this story. “My focus remains on justice and transparency.”
Nanos has recently sat for interviews with select media on the ground in Tucson. He has tussled with some of the conservative outlets.
Savannah Guthrie with mom Nancy Guthrie (left) on NBC’s ‘Today’ in 2019.
Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
After Nanos won by a razor-thin margin, Lappin says, “He just kept coming after me.” The result of the efforts was an administrative leave for Lappin, where she says she was basically put under “house arrest.” She sued for $2 million.
Now, Lappin is trying to not talk about the Guthrie case — but she did criticize the sheriff’s work. (Lappin declined to comment on plans to run for Pima County sheriff in 2028, though she says she can from an eligibility standpoint.)
Earlier this month, Nancy Guthrie, the elderly and infirm mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was violently taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona. More than three weeks into the investigation, law enforcement, which now includes the FBI, have no real leads.
“A lot of the Guthrie case is just consequences of his really bad decision making, the years of decimating his units,” Lappin says. “Three of our best homicide detectives, probably in [all of] southern Arizona, were removed from Homicide because they supported me [in the election].”
One popular criticism of Nanos, who to his credit has taken much of it head on, is a reported rift between his office and the feds. It is not entirely clear who has primary jurisdiction as the details of the crime remain so unknown. Lappin says she would have handled the case differently.
“Why didn’t you become the support agency and give this to the FBI? They have the resources. They can bring in the hundreds and hundreds of people that command those tip lines. He’s trying to do that with 395 deputies — we don’t have the resources,” Lappin says.
In our phone call, I informed Lappin of the latest beat of the ongoing Nancy Guthrie case: a $1 million reward “for any information that leads to her recovery,” as Savannah Guthrie laid out in a Tuesday video. An individual close to the family told THR the Guthries wanted the reward out there on day one, but law enforcement discouraged the idea in an effort to prevent fake tipsters.
“[Nanos’] ego doesn’t let him make the decision to give it up because he thinks it’s going to make him look bad,” Lappin says. “When you put your own ego and your own [image] to the public over the health and safety of an 84-year-old woman, then that’s a problem.”
