The sheriff leading the investigation into the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie acknowledged that missteps were made in the case’s early hours, including removing crime scene tape and delaying requests for assistance from outside law enforcement agencies.

According to reporting from The Arizona Republic, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said his department released Guthrie’s home as a crime scene too soon, only to return days later to recover additional evidence. Nanos acknowledged that, in hindsight, the scene should have remained secured longer and that other agencies could have been called in earlier.

Fox News Digital also obtained a statement indicating that the pilot of the county’s high-tech search aircraft had been disciplined following a dispute with Nanos and reassigned to street patrol, according to local law enforcement sources. As a result, the aircraft’s takeoff was delayed for several hours after Guthrie was reported missing around midday Sunday, the sources said.

“Three hours in a search for a vulnerable adult is an eternity,” a law enforcement source with knowledge of the situation told Fox News Digital.

INVESTIGATORS RETURN TO NANCY GUTHRIE’S HOME AS SEARCH FOR NBC HOST’S MOTHER CONTINUES

The Pima County Deputies Organization criticized the decision to reassign the pilot, telling Fox News Digital that it opposed the move at the time because it left a critical law enforcement asset understaffed.

According to the deputy organization, the pilot personally appealed the decision to Sheriff Chris Nanos but was reassigned to patrol anyway. The group said the move reflected what it described as a broader pattern of leadership decisions, citing another instance in which the department’s most experienced Search and Rescue deputy was transferred to patrol late last year without a replacement.

The deputy organization said those staffing decisions left key units short-handed during what became one of the highest-profile searches in the sheriff’s department’s history and during one of the busiest times of year for Search and Rescue operations.

Nanos said investigators believed they had completed processing the scene at the time, but later determined that conclusion was premature.

Authorities believe Guthrie — the mother of NBC “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — was forcibly taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona, though no suspects or persons of interest have been publicly identified. Nanos said Thursday that investigators are continuing to pursue all leads.

“Everybody is still a suspect in our eyes,” Nanos said.

Investigators outlined a timeline of events during a news conference Thursday, saying Guthrie was dropped off at her home around 9:48 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, after having dinner with family.

NBC HOST SAVANNAH GUTHRIE’S MOTHER TAKEN FROM HOME AS EXPERT RAISES ALARMING NEW THEORIES AMID LACK OF LEADS

Authorities said the home’s doorbell camera disconnected from the security system at 1:47 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 1. About 25 minutes later, software detected movement near the home, but no video footage was captured. At 2:28 a.m., Guthrie’s pacemaker application disconnected from her phone, which was later found inside the residence.

Nanos confirmed that blood discovered on the front porch was tested and that DNA analysis showed it belonged to Guthrie.

The FBI has since joined the investigation and is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Guthrie’s recovery. Federal authorities said they are vetting ransom notes connected to the case and confirmed that at least one person has been arrested in connection with what investigators described as an “impostor ransom demand.”

HARVEY LEVIN GIVES EXPLOSIVE UPDATE ON PURPORTED NANCY LEVIN RANSOM NOTE ON ‘HANNITY’ 

Nanos said the case has evolved into a possible kidnapping and that multiple agencies are now sharing information and resources. He added that it does not matter which agency is leading the investigation, saying the priority remains locating Guthrie.

Guthrie’s son, Camron Guthrie, made a new video appeal Thursday directed at whoever may be holding his mother, urging them to contact the family.

“We haven’t heard anything directly,” he said. “Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you.”

Authorities have not released additional details, citing the ongoing investigation.

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The Pima County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Alex Koch contributed to this report. 

Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.

President Donald Trump’s beef import plan aims to cut prices, but cattle ranchers say it misses what’s crushing them most — the power of meat packers.

“Meat packers have created a system where they win no matter what — at the cost of everyone else,” said Will Harris, a fourth-generation cattleman and owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia.

Harris, who plans to hand off the operation to his children, said his farm handles every step of production, from raising cattle to processing and selling beef, giving him a clear view of how prices are set.

AMERICA’S SMALLEST CATTLE HERD IN 70 YEARS MEANS REBUILDING WILL TAKE YEARS AND BEEF PRICES COULD STAY HIGH

At the center of that pricing power sit the “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef — anchoring the U.S. beef supply chain from pasture to plate.

Together, the packing titans process about 85% of the grain-fattened cattle that become steaks, roasts and other supermarket cuts.

“The U.S. beef market is so highly concentrated that a small number of dominant packers control processing, distribution and pricing. This allows them to pay ranchers less for cattle while charging consumers more at the store. When cheap imported beef enters the system, it allows packers to increase their margins,” Harris told Fox News Digital.

It’s a concern echoed deep into cattle country.

Texas cattle rancher Cole Bolton said he sees the same problem in the Lone Star State.

IN TEXAS CATTLE COUNTRY, ONE RANCHER WELCOMES TRUMP’S FOCUS ON DECADES OF THIN MARGINS

“What the real issue is, is the price differential between the big four packers and what they’re paying us for the product,” said Bolton, the owner of K&C Cattle Company.

Those margins, Bolton said, have been squeezed for decades. “Ranchers have dealt with such thin margins of profitability for the last 20 years.”

While ranchers like Bolton and Harris say Trump’s temporary expansion of U.S. beef imports from Argentina may help ease prices in the short term, both warn it is no substitute for rebuilding domestic production.

“Imports should be a bridge, not a long-term replacement,” Harris said. “We must rebuild the American cattle herd, protect American farmers and ensure transparency, so consumers understand where their beef comes from. Long-term affordability depends on a healthy, resilient domestic cattle industry — not permanent dependence on foreign beef.”

Years of drought, high feed costs and an aging ranching population have thinned herds, leaving the U.S. cattle supply at its lowest level in more than 70 years.

“I think it’s going to take a while to fix this crisis that we’re in with the cattle shortage. My message to consumers is simple: Folks, be patient. We’ve got to build back our herds,” Bolton told Fox News Digital.

He noted that the cattle industry, over the last five years, has weathered one setback after another, from market turmoil to extreme weather conditions.

Democrats in Texas were called out on Friday in an Atlantic article for their “circular-firing squad behavior” in the state’s Democratic Senate primary.

“The party’s latest and most egregious circular-firing-squad behavior transpired earlier this week, when the Democrat Colin Allred, who’d previously dropped out of the Senate race, endorsed Jasmine Crockett, one of the two remaining major competitors. He gave his reason for doing so in a video he posted to social media on Monday,” Atlantic writer Jonathan Chait wrote.

The article referenced comments made by Morgan Thompson, a political influencer who posts on TikTok under the username @morga_tt, who claimed that state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, referred to former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, as a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico, who is now facing off against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, allegedly told Thompson that he “signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent Black woman.”

Allred responded to the comments in a video on social media, and encouraged people to vote for Crockett.

EX-SNL STAR BOWEN YANG, PODCAST CO-HOST WALK BACK COMMENTS CRITICIZING JASMINE CROCKETT’S SENATE CAMPAIGN

Allred dropped out of the Senate Race in December.

Chait wrote that Allred chose the most “inflammatory response” to post on TikTok.

“Allred did not have to record and share his response to Talarico, nor was he required to take the allegation at face value. He chose the most inflammatory response,” he wrote.

Allred said, “We’re tired of folks using praise for Black women to mask criticism for Black men.”

TEXAS DEM WHO SAID GOD IS ‘NONBINARY’ NOW SAYS ATHEISTS ARE MORE ‘CHRIST-LIKE’ THAN CHRISTIAN COLLEAGUES

“Everything about this episode reveals levels of pathological incompetence. Crockett and her supporters are prying open fissures that will scar whichever candidate emerges. They are expressing themselves in social-justice jargon that might be effective in a student-council race at Wesleyan but sounds completely alien to most Texans,” Chait wrote.

Chait also criticized Crockett for her plan to win over voters that have historically not been reached. The progressive firebrand has said she doesn’t need to win over voters who supported President Donald Trump. She said during an interview on CNN in December, “Our goal is to make sure that we can engage people that historically have not been talked to.”

“Crockett has suggested that she can help drive turnout of infrequent voters. The belief that there is a hidden reservoir of left-wing voters who will bother to show up at the polls only if a sufficiently progressive candidate activates their interest is a decades-old myth,” Chait argued.

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He also argued that concerns about Crockett’s electability were not racist, as she has suggested. Chait specifically referenced podcast hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers telling listeners not to waste money on her campaign.

In response, Crockett said the hosts were saying the “quiet part out loud.”

“I really do think that the host said the quiet part out loud, which basically was: If a White man couldn’t do it, then why would a Black woman even have the audacity to think that she could?” Crockett said.

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“One fatal flaw of progressive identity norms, which treat women and people of color as experts on racism and sexism whose charges of bias cannot be refuted, is that they insulate bad arguments from scrutiny. The belief that swing voters in Texas are too racist and sexist to be compromised with implies that defeat is the only morally acceptable option,” he wrote.