As the Nancy Guthrie abduction case stretches into a third week, investigators — and a public riveted by every mysterious development — have focused on DNA recovered from gloves found near her home.
The F.B.I. said that the gloves, collected last week in a field near the side of a road about two miles from her home near Tucson, Ariz., were sent to a private lab in Florida and that the DNA of an “unknown male” was found on them. That DNA profile will be loaded into the agency’s national database in hopes of identifying the man.
Peter Valentin, chair of the forensic science department at the University of New Haven, said on Monday that the laboratory analysis could produce results within days.
He said investigators would typically swab both the interior and exterior of the gloves to determine the identity of the user and if that person touched someone else — which could produce a second DNA profile.
“DNA is so easily transferred from one surface to another that the glove can tell us a bit of a story, not just give us information about who is wearing the glove,” said Dr. Valentin, a former major crimes detective with the Connecticut State Police.
Ms. Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Savannah Guthrie, co-host of the “Today” show, was taken from her home on Feb. 1.
The F.B.I. said the gloves appeared similar to those worn by the masked man whose image was captured in surveillance footage from Ms. Guthrie’s doorbell camera. Released by the police last week, the footage shows a person wearing a ski mask, gloves and a backpack while standing at her front door on the morning of her disappearance.
Investigators collected about 16 other gloves near the home. Most of them belonged to searchers who discarded them in the vicinity.
A sheriff’s department spokeswoman said that investigators also discovered DNA on Ms. Guthrie’s property that was neither hers nor that of anyone in “close contact with her.” The police did not release details about where that DNA was found.
Audra D. S. Burch is a national reporter, based in South Florida and Atlanta, writing about race and identity around the country.
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