A retired lieutenant who spent nearly 30 years at the Pima County Sheriff's Department is publicly torching his former boss, Sheriff Chris Nanos, over the handling of the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, calling Nanos an ineffective communicator and claiming that nearly the entire department lost faith in him years ago.

Bob Krygier, a former SWAT chief, laid into Nanos during an appearance on the Surviving the Survivor podcast, where he accused the sheriff of mishandling the high-profile case of the 84-year-old mother of Today anchor Savannah Guthrie. Nancy Guthrie has been missing since February 1, when she was last seen walking into her Tucson, Arizona, home. Over a month later, no arrests have been made.

And the man running the investigation, according to one of his own former senior officers, can barely get through a press conference.

A Department in Disarray

According to the U.S. Sun, Krygier did not mince words about Nanos's ability to lead during a crisis of this magnitude. On the podcast, he described a sheriff who stumbles through public remarks and struggles to project competence when it matters most.

He is not the best one to deliver those messages most times. He gets wrapped up in his thoughts, he gets emotional. Even if he's not getting pushback he sometimes just repeats himself over and over.

Then Krygier dropped the bigger claim: that a morale poll conducted a couple of years ago produced a staggering rebuke of the sheriff's leadership.

We did a morale poll a couple years ago – 98% of the department gave a vote of no confidence to the sheriff for various reasons.

Krygier let the number breathe, adding simply: "Think about that number. This isn't Mayberry. We need to do better."

The Pima County Sheriff's Department fired back, calling the 98% figure "inaccurate." According to a statement provided to The U.S. Sun, only one of five labor groups within the department participated in the vote, and less than half of that group's membership actually cast a ballot. The department emphasized the result was "NOT 98% of the department."

That's a fair clarification on the math. But it also raises an obvious question: if morale was healthy, why did any labor group hold a no-confidence vote at all? Departments where officers trust leadership don't tend to formalize their dissatisfaction into polling instruments. Krygier may have overstated the breadth of the vote, but the existence of the vote tells its own story.

A Case Going Cold in Plain Sight

The backdrop for all of this internal sniping is the disappearance of an 84-year-old woman from her own home, in broad daylight of public attention, with the nation watching.

Here is what investigators have, more than a month in:

• Eerie footage of a masked intruder outside Nancy's home the night she vanished
• A glove with a DNA profile recovered at the scene is currently being analyzed at a lab
• A delivery driver and at least one other person were detained and then released
• Reports of ransom letters and deadlines, though it remains unclear whether the authors were actually involved
• Zero arrests

Nancy's son-in-law was the last person to see her, but he and the rest of the family have been ruled out as suspects.

Sheriff Nanos, speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, projected cautious optimism.

I think the investigators are definitely closer. We got a lot of intel, a lot of leads, but now it's time to just go to work.

"Time to just go to work" is a curious phrase for someone whose department has been on this case for over a month. It sounds like something you say at the beginning. Not five weeks in.

A Family Waiting

While the department disputes poll numbers and the former SWAT chief does podcast circuits, the Guthrie family continues to plead for answers. Savannah Guthrie, who has begged for information in tearful social media posts and recently visited a makeshift vigil outside her mother's home, shared a message on Monday:

We feel the love and prayers from our neighbors, from the Tucson community and from around the country. Please don't stop praying and hoping with us. Bring her home.

That's a daughter asking strangers to keep caring because the people paid to solve this haven't delivered yet.

Leadership Matters When It Costs Something

There is a broader point here that extends well beyond Pima County. Competent law enforcement leadership is not a luxury. It is the baseline expectation of a functioning community. When a vulnerable person vanishes from her home, the public needs to trust that the department running the investigation is capable, focused, and led by someone who can command a room.

Krygier, whatever his motivations, identified a real problem when he said Nanos's communication failures make everything harder than it needs to be. In a case with national media scrutiny, ransom letters of uncertain origin, and a family desperate for closure, the sheriff's ability to project authority and competence isn't a side issue. It is central to whether tips keep coming in, whether the public stays engaged, and whether the people inside the department believe their leadership has a plan.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department can quibble with the 98% number. They cannot quibble with the fact that Nancy Guthrie has been missing for over a month, no one has been arrested, and the most memorable public statements from their sheriff sound like a man still finding his footing.

An 84-year-old woman is gone. Her daughter is begging on social media. And the department responsible for bringing her home is spending part of its energy fighting a retired lieutenant over poll methodology.

Tucson deserves better than this.