A former FBI agent has claimed a black glove found near Nancy Guthrie's home could be key to cracking her kidnapping case.
As previously reported, 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has been missing since the early hours of February 1, after being abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona.
She was last seen the evening before after she was dropped back to her house by her daughter and son-in-law, and the alarm was raised when she failed to arrive for a church service the following day.
Drops of her blood were seen leading up to her door and a doorbell camera had been deactivated in the early hours, however, police have since been able to recover some footage from the device.
The images show a man approaching the camera wearing a balaclava and large backpack, before trying to cover the lens with a gloved hand as well as some foliage he'd collected from the front yard.
The search is still ongoing to establish the identity of the man and to find Nancy's whereabouts, with her daughter, Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, having issued direct pleas to her kidnappers on social media.
During the investigation, a black glove similar to the ones worn by the man captured on camera at her door, was found on the roadside around a mile and a half from her home.
Former FBI agent Michael Harrigan, who oversaw the FBI National Academy, believed the discovery would "be significant" if it is linked to the kidnapping.
He told the New York Post: "The question would be whether that glove was like a nitrile glove that was placed over another glove or whether it went against the skin.
"Whether it’s against the skin or over another glove would determine the likelihood of DNA being transferred to it from the suspect."
He revealed that the glove will be thoroughly analyzed to see if any skin cell DNA from Nancy or the potential perpetrator is present, however, he warned that there is the possibility it is simply "just another glove discarded by a worker or somebody else."
If DNA from the wearer is found, police will be looking to track them down and speak to them to establish their whereabouts on the night of the kidnapping.
Harrigan warned that while a connection to the crime is a "very low probability thing with a glove that far away" from the scene, nothing is insignificant 11 days into a kidnapping investigation.
He added: "The fact that you would have investigators walking along a roadway one and a half miles away looking for items that likely could have been thrown out of a car or a vehicle, discarded, tells you that they are absolutely doing a lot of detail work in this case behind the scenes.
"In this instance, with it being a kidnapping, there is no limit really to a perimeter [of the search]."
Currently, authorities have not identified any suspects in the kidnapping, despite bringing one man in for questioning who was later released.
Delivery driver Carlos Palazuelos, from Rio Ricos, 60 miles south of Tucson, was briefly detained on Tuesday evening but was released several hours later.
Several ransom demands were received in the wake of Nancy's disappearance, including one which police were taking seriously, though the deadline stated in the letter has since passed.