Nancy Guthrie's Disappearance: Lead Detective in Chilling Case Had 'Never Investigated a Homicide Before'

The investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance has so far resulted in no credible leads or suspects, causing critics to wonder if the officials overseeing the chilling case are qualified to handle the high-level job.

As the search for the 84-year-old mother of Today star Savannah Guthrie enters its third month, an insider from the law enforcement community in Tucson, Ariz., made a surprising confession about the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and mistakes they may have made during the early days of the investigation.

With all eyes on Sheriff Chris Nanos and the individuals leading the unsolved mystery, the source — who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing his job — told NewsNation's senior national correspondent Brian Entin that the authorities who first arrived at Nancy's home lacked experience to handle a crime of such nature.

"The people who were there on the scene were not tenured homicide detectives," the confidant revealed. "They didn’t have a lot of experience in homicide at that point to include the supervisor who, from my understanding, never investigated a homicide before being installed as the supervisor to the homicide unit."

Instead of hiring a rightfully equipped individual for the job, the source claimed higher-ups at the department would opt to promote their friends — even if they weren't qualified for the title.

"You have decisions made by people that will install friends and people that can do stuff for them, opposed to people that are there under merit," the insider continued.

Entin's interview — which will air in full during the Thursday, April 2, edition of Katie Pavlich Tonight on NewsNation — comes one day after the Guthrie family marked exactly two months since police believe Nancy was abducted from her home during the early hours of Sunday, February 1.

Nancy was last seen on Saturday, January 31, though footage from her doorbell camera captured a masked suspect mangling with the device outside of the elderly woman's home after midnight on February 1.

Blood was notably found on Nancy's porch. Her phone, wallet, keys, medications, shoes and other important items were left behind, according to her daughter Savannah.

During a recent emotional interview with her Today costar and longtime friend Hoda Kotb, Savannah explained how she and her siblings knew "something was very wrong" when they arrived at Nancy's home after she went missing.

“The doors were propped open, there was blood on the front doorstep and the Ring camera had been yanked off," she traumatically recalled. "So we were saying, 'This is not OK.'"

At first, Nancy's family "thought that she must have had some kind of medical episode in the night and that somehow the paramedics had come," though it "didn't make any sense" that the back doors were left propped open.

"We thought maybe they came and there was a stretcher and they took her out the back," Savannah noted. "But her phone was there, her purse was there and all her things."

Savannah sobbed as she wondered how someone could take such a "little person" from her home "in the dead of night in her pajamas, with no shoes, without her medicine."