There’s been another twist in the Nancy Guthrie case. The 85-year-old has been missing for just over a month, but the twist this time comes because the sheriff involved in the case, Chris Nanos, has been hit with a $1 million lawsuit. But it’s not directly due to the Guthrie investigation itself. No, the lawsuit actually comes from a prisoner inside the Pima County Jail in Arizona, and both Sheriff Chris Nanos and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department are named as defendants. But what for? What could they be being sued for? Let’s find out more.
For starters, inmate Christopher Michael Marx filed the lawsuit while residing in the Pima County Jail. He’s asking for roughly $1.35 million in damages alongside policy changes & an apology from Nanos himself because of what he sees as a violation of his civil rights.
What exactly for? Well, according to Marx’s complaint, jail staff moved between housing units during the time when the jail was placed under COVID-19 quarantine. Marx claims that such movements may have exposed him to COVID infection, so he claims that Nanos and the Pima County Jail violated his rights.
Marx’s filing falls under 42 U.S.C. §1983, which allows people to sue government officials when they believe that officials have violated their constitutional rights. The case is one of many times that a prisoner has filed a civil rights case against officials. Section 1983 cases are actually quite common when they’re challenging prison conditions or safety practices.
In addition, Marx claims that he’d use the $1.35 million from the lawsuit to buy apartments for homeless people and give them several months of free rent. He’s also said he wants the sheriff to give a public apology and change jail procedures, including requiring deputies to disinfect themselves properly between any housing units under quarantine. Currently, there’s no ruling on whether any of these claims will succeed.
Sheriff Chris Nanos is currently involved in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, and he was named in the lawsuit because he oversees Pima County’s jail system. He is responsible for the custody & control of the county jail. He also leads prisoner care.
Of course, Nanos is hardly a newcomer on the force. He first began policing in El Paso in 1976 before joining the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in 1984. He was appointed sheriff between 2015 & 2016, and he later resumed the role from 2021 until the present day. But most people know him for his work on the Nancy Guthrie case.
Guthrie is the mother of NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie. Nancy disappeared from her home in the Catalina Foothills, Tucson, on January 31, 2026. This led to a national investigation. Security footage revealed a masked figure walking up to the house on the day of the disappearance. In the video, the figure is wearing dark clothing & is carrying a backpack. Investigators said that the person tampered with the camera system before the device went offline.
The next day, Guthrie’s remote pacemaker monitoring signal stopped transmitting. Authorities also confirmed that the blood stains found on the porch matched Guthrie. As such, they began treating the case as a possible abduction, rather than a case of Nancy simply choosing to disappear.
During the ongoing investigation, Sheriff Nanos made several comments about the case, including the fact that the investigators were not treating Guthrie’s children or spouses as suspects. He said that the family had been cooperating throughout.
Later, the search for Guthrie expanded, and Sheriff Nanos stated that it was one of the largest that his department had dealt with in recent years. There were around 400 people involved in the search at one point. The group included local deputies & federal agents who closely examined a ton of physical evidence recovered from the house.
Savannah Guthrie and her family have made many public pleas for her mother to be released. There have also been several claims of law enforcement receiving ransom notes about the case, although these are neither confirmed nor widely shared. Nancy Guthrie is still missing, as of March 9.
