Nancy Guthrie Case: Sheriff’s Department Filmed Reality Show Before Her Disappearance, Saw Multiple Staffing Changes

Detectives involved in Nancy Guthrie’s case participated in a reality show just weeks before her disappearance. The Pima County Sheriff's Department (PCSD), which is leading the investigation into the high-profile case, is the subject of the A&E reality series Desert Law.

Fox News obtained more than 220 pages of emails between the sheriff’s department and the show’s producers, shedding light on how the series was produced. The emails were exchanged between June 2025 and December 2025, and the show premiered in January 2026, just days before Guthrie went missing from her home near Tucson, Arizona.

According to the emails, Desert Law producer, Amanda Riley, was regularly in contact with Captain Robert Koumal, who oversees the Community Services Division in the PCSD. The producers sought several investigative videos from the department, including Ring camera recordings and bodycam footage.

The crew requested that the department assign a public information officer to drive a marked SUV for filming background shots. The request was accepted. However, PCSD officials remained skeptical about sharing bodycam videos of certain incidents.

At one point, a member of the production team, Tom Olney, asked Koumal to prioritize providing bodycam footage so the show could be produced before its deadline. “There is one area we've struggled with, which would be great to get your input on,” Olney wrote in one of the emails.

“To show the breadth of work the deputies and detectives do, we have been looking at creating compelling narratives purely from body-worn camera footage at incidents we didn't film at—we are calling them retrospective incidents,” he added. It remains unclear how much footage was ultimately shared with the producers.

The emails also revealed a key detail about the department’s operations that may raise concerns. In an exchange with Riley, Koumal said the department had seen multiple staffing changes. The leadership of various divisions, including the homicide and cold case units, underwent reassignments in the months leading to Guthrie’s disappearance.

“The department has experienced some rotational re-assignments since last year,” Koumal wrote to Riley.

Notably, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has not been mentioned in the emails, and it is not yet clear whether he also assisted with the show’s production.

Although the reality series was filmed before Guthrie went missing, it has sparked discussion about the department’s priorities. The PCSD is already facing scrutiny for its handling of the 84-year-old’s disappearance case.

Guthrie vanished from her home in Catalina Foothills on the night of January 31. Since then, the PCSD has been investigating the case with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Detectives recovered DNA evidence from the crime scene early in the investigation, but it did not yield any results.

Some have alleged that the PCSD’s decision to send the DNA sample to a private lab in Florida did not lead to breakthrough in the case. The FBI is now re-examining the sample at an official lab in hopes of better results. Meanwhile, Guthrie’s whereabouts remain unknown.