Police have found a shoe believed to belong to Jeffrey Boucher, a high school teacher who disappeared after he left his home for a morning run on Jan. 13 in Whitby, Ont.
Durham police said Friday that a shoe that is believed to belong to 52-year-old Boucher was found on the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Whitby.
A woman walking in the area on March 11 found the shoe and contacted police.
A small number of investigators are in the area assessing ground and water conditions, and an aerial search of the area is scheduled to take place Friday evening.
Police are expected to launch a larger-scale search next week.
Boucher's wife, Kristen, was down by the shoreline Friday evening. She said while no one is certain if the shoe belongs to her husband, all the clues are there.
"It's not 100 per cent. It's just, it did strike me as being exactly the way he laced them, and the same type of shoe we had talked about liking, and the same colour that he'd pick," she said.
Boucher's disappearance has stumped police.
A week after he disappeared, investigators announced the search would be scaled back as investigators had very few leads to follow.
At the time, police believed that Boucher may have slipped on the ice and fell into a ditch, or he was hit by a car. But after an extensive search, in which police had found no physical evidence or sightings of Boucher, officers said the likelihood that he slipped was becoming less realistic.
Police also said there were no signs that Boucher vanished on purpose, noting that an extensive background search revealed nothing unusual.
With files from CTV Toronto's John Musselman
