Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos defended arresting true crime YouTubers near Nancy Guthrie’s home, blasting the alleged culprits as a “nuisance” to the missing matriarch’s neighborhood.
The embattled sheriff touched on the June incident during a recent appearance on KVOI’s “The Buckmaster Show,” where he emphasized that the arrests came about 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.”
As Nanos went on, he noted that “the real media,” meaning national and local media that descended upon Tucson, Ariz. in the wake of Savannah Guthrie’s mother’s apparent abduction, were actually “very respectful” to both the sheriff’s department and the community at large. Notably, Nanos praised the outlets for leaving the area when no new developments surfaced in the weeks following, adding, “But we had two or three that, for whatever reason, thought that they should remain.”
Per Nanos, the presence of these creators’ “got to be a nuisance to the community,” causing the sheriff’s department to get reports about them supposedly every day. While Nanos acknowledged that these creators had a right to report the news, he sounded off that 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.]’”
Nanos reiterated that he tried to approach the dynamic with “some sense of reasonableness,” even extending an invitation for them to camp outside his office. He also explained that his protocol has always been to first issue a warning, then a ticket and then finally making an arrest.
“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.’”
Earlier in June, it was reported that YouTubers Alexander Zabel Jr., Troy Lewis “DAA Juice” Bradshaw and Damian Todd Enderle were arrested on June 8, with Pima County authorities later stating that the arrests came about after complaints of trespassing and disrupting the peace.
Though, on “The Buckmaster Show,” Nanos clarified that one of the alleged culprits was actually given a misdemeanor citation, while the others were physically booked.
However, Zabel Jr. was arrested again that following Thursday for live streaming from outside of the Guthrie’s residence.
“On June 11, 2026, just before 5 p.m., deputies with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department arrested 54-year-old Alexander Zabel Jr. in front of Nancy Guthrie’s home,” the sheriff’s department shared on X at the time. “PCSD had received several complaints regarding Mr. Zabel’s behavior. At the time of the incident, Mr. Zabel was live streaming from outside the residence. Deputies made contact with him and, during the arrest process, a PCSD sergeant was knocked to the ground.”
In response to his arrests, Zabel Jr. defended that he always meant to keep Guthrie’s “name in the public eye and and keep attention on a missing person case that still has more questions than answers.”
“I am a true crime streamer, an independent journalist, and a citizen exercising rights protected by the Constitution,” he added. “Later, I heard claims were made that I urinated on camera during a livestream. That never happened. My livestream began in the Uber ride to the location. If such an event had occurred, it would have been captured on video for the world to see. It wasn’t, because it didn’t happen.”
You can read his full statement here.
