The sheriff also made matters worse for the family when veteran journalist Ashleigh Banfield reported that Nancy’s son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, “may be the prime suspect” in her disappearance, according to an “impeccable” source she had.

Up until then, it had been reported that Nancy’s daughter, Cioni’s wife, Annie, drove her mom home from dinner at the couple’s house on January 31 and was the last person to see her.

After Banfield’s report, Nanos told The New York Times that Cioni had driven Nancy back to her home, going into detail about how he had watched to make sure she was safely inside. That made Cioni the last person to have seen his mother-in-law before her abduction hours later.

Nanos later walked back his comments to the publication and refused to say who the last person to see Nancy alive was, only sharing that it was a “relative” who dropped her off before she vanished.

Bandfield has continued to stand by her reporting, saying on February 13, “Nothing’s changed” about Cioni’s alleged suspect status.