Florida police resumed their efforts to find Brian Laundrie, the fiancé of the late Gabby Petito, whose remains were found Sunday after disappearing in early September.
Petito’s family attorney Richard Stafford told the media yesterday that the remains found Sunday in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest belonged to the 22-year-old woman.
On Tuesday, investigators resumed their search for Laundrie on the Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre nature reservation located near his family’s residence in Florida.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson Adam Brown said agents had been called in Monday afternoon to launch the exploration, which comes as investigators try to piece together what happened to the couple on their summer trip.
Petito and Laundrie had set out on a road trip through the western United States this summer and shared their adventures online using the hashtag #VanLife. However, Petito abruptly stopped posting about their travels in late August.
Laundrie, 23, returned to his parent’s home in North Port, Florida, on September 1, but his fiancée was not with him, police stated.
Petito’s family reported her missing on September 11. According to police reports, Laundrie had refused to speak to officers about Petito’s whereabouts before her disappearance, but he was not charged or considered a suspect of any crime.
On Friday night, his parents told police they hadn’t seen him since September 14, when he left with his backpack, allegedly heading to the nearby Carlton Reserve.
Yesterday, a coroner confirmed that the remains found in a Wyoming national park Sunday were those of Petito.
The case made headlines quickly and has become an obsession for the public. Social media sleuths have carefully reviewed the couple’s Instagram profiles and created Reddit threads to find clues and solve the case.
Meanwhile, North Port, Florida police have focused their search on the Carlton Reservation’s wilderness, using video drones and bloodhounds that sniffed Laundrie’s clothes to try to find him, police spokesperson Josh Taylor said.
On Monday, authorities announced they had changed the focus of their search, leaving the nature reserve, as they believed they had “exhausted all avenues in searching of the grounds there.”
However, officers revealed Tuesday morning that searching at the reserve had resumed, and they have worked incessantly at the site since 8:00 a.m. Tuesday.
The investigation “has yet to yield any answers, but we must press on,” police said in a Facebook post yesterday.
