It may just be a coincidence, but investigators are curious whether a yellow jacket connects the presumed double murder of an elderly North Carolina couple to the disappearance of Meredith Emerson, last seen hiking in the North Georgia mountains on New Year's Day.

Like Emerson, John and Irene Bryant were avid hikers, hitting the trails up to three times a week, their son Bob Bryant said.

The couple was last sighted Oct. 20 in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest.

Three weeks later, Irene Bryant's body was discovered; she had been bludgeoned to death, authorities said. Her husband remains missing.

Police investigating Emerson's disappearance are looking for Gary Michael Hilton, 61, who was seen walking with the University of Georgia graduate on Tuesday. He was wearing a yellow jacket, witnesses said.

In the Bryant case, a surveillance video recorded someone wearing a yellow jacket using the couple's ATM card at a bank in Ducktown, Tenn. — about an hour away from where Emerson was hiking.

Nothing else is known about the suspect, said U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Harold Young.

"Right now we don't see a correlation, but the yellow jacket certainly raised a flag," Young said. "They call these things clues."

There haven't been many in the Bryant investigation.

"We don't have any promising leads," Young said.

The Bryants' son said he is also following the search for Emerson.

"The crime was so heinous ... to murder an elderly couple like that," Bob Bryant said Thursday night in a telephone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.

Bryant said he believes more than one person was involved in his parents' death.

"My dad was a strong guy," he said. "I don't think one person could've gotten away with this."