Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has defended the arrest of true crime YouTubers and content creators near Nancy Guthrie’s home, blasting them as a “nuisance” to the missing 84-year-old’s neighborhood. He spoke out about the arrest during an appearance on Arizona radio station KVOI AM 1030’s ‘Buckmaster Show’ on June 26, saying it was done after several warnings.
“In this case, we tried to be very reasonable,” Nanos said. “We first put up deputies parked at this house to keep people away. Then it went to, okay, too many cars are parked here and the neighbors couldn’t get by. So, we put up no parking signs – temporary signs.”
Nanos praised “the real media” for being “very respectful” to both the sheriff’s department and the community, adding that even when all outlets had left, some still remained.
“But we had two or three that, for whatever reason, thought that they should remain,” he said.
Nanos said that these YouTubers’ presence “got to be a nuisance to the community.” He said that while these individuals had the right to report the news, they should “have some respect for the neighborhood.”
“We went from a neighborhood that averaged 50 reports in a six month time to over 180, almost 200,” he said. “So we have to kind of balance that, and we thought we’d take an approach of, ‘Hey, let’s go and warn these people. You, you guys really should do this somewhere else. What you’re reporting really isn’t anything new or earth-shattering. If there’s something new or shattering … the entire media outlets will know about [it.]’”
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Nanos explained that he tried to handle the situation with “some sense of reasonableness,” and even extended an invitation for them to camp outside his office.
“I didn’t want to have to book anybody, but it got to a point where you know you cannot urinate [or] defecate in front of [the] neighborhood, you just can’t do that,” he said. “And I had enough, and I said, ‘That’s it, they’re going to go to jail.’”
YouTubers arrested
Earlier in June, several YouTubers were arrested and charged after a crackdown in Nancy’s Catalina Foothills neighborhood, News 4 Tucson reported. According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Alexander Zabel, who runs the true crime page “Criminal Network,” was taken into custody at his home.
Troy Bradshaw, who runs the “DAA JUICE” page on YouTube, was also arrested and charged with public nuisance. Damian Todd Enderle was cited with public nuisance, but later released.
The X account Pima County Deputy’s Organization wrote at the time, “This evening, two subjects were arrested as they were live streaming in the Guthrie neighborhood. This arrest order personally came from Sheriff Nanos via chain of command. The public can once again see why we fight so hard to rid ourselves of him.”
