Police slammed for letting ‘person of interest’ slip away after likely remains of Gabby Petito found

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The FBI on Monday impounded Brian Laundrie’s abandoned Ford Mustang which was spotted near a Florida nature preserve just after the man authorities say is a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance of van-lifer Gabby Petito  went missing last week.

Laundrie’s family found a police note on his Ford Mustang asking to move the vehicle after he disappeared last week, it was learned on Monday as FBI agents raided the home of parents Chris and Roberta Laundrie.

The dramatic developments come just a day after authorities found a body in a Wyoming park that matches Petito’s description. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.

Laundrie went missing sometime last week and is believed to have traveled to the Carlton Reserve near his home in North Port. Police announced today they had abandoned the search at the reserve and were looking for him elsewhere.

Today, the FBI raided his parents’ home. Chris and Roberta Laundrie were led out of the home and into a police van while agents executed the search warrant. Some 10 minutes later, they were brought back inside for questioning.

A tow truck pulled up outside the home as agents were seen searching Laundrie’s Mustang. The car had been found by his family after it was abandoned next to the reserve with a police note on its windscreen, demanding that the vehicle be removed from the area.

Steven Berolino, an attorney for the family, told ABC 7 that the family initially left the car there so that Brian Laundrie could drive it back, but they returned on Thursday to retrieve it, according to Bertolino. 

The next day, the family filed a missing persons report.  

FBI agents stormed his family’s home on Monday and removed his parents from the house while declaring the area a crime scene moments after authorities called off a search of a nearby nature reserve, saying they have ‘exhausted all avenues.’ 

The FBI tweeted on Monday that it ‘is executing a court-authorized search warrant today at the Laundrie residence in North Port, FL relevant to the Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito investigation.’

‘No further details can be provided since this is an active and ongoing investigation,’ the FBI added.  

Agents spent several hours inside the residence collecting evidence. By around 4pm local time, most had left the home while some officers of the North Port Police Department remained. 

DailyMail.com was on the scene as FBI agents led Chris and Roberta Laundrie, Brian Laundrie’s parents, out of the home and into a police van. They were allowed back into the residence about an hour later. 

The dramatic development come a day after investigators found the body of a person believed to be his fiance, missing van-lifer Petito, in Wyoming. 

A forensic pathologist from Sheridan, Wyoming will travel 360 miles east to Teton County Coroner’s Office to perform the autopsy.

A large continent of law enforcement officials were seen arriving at the home on Monday.

FBI agents and police moved into the Laundrie house in force around 9.40 am this morning. 

Five vehicles turned up with officers pouring out after the house was suddenly taped off with yellow police line tape. Shouts of ‘search warrant’ could be heard. 

Laundries parents were taken swiftly out of the home and into a black propel carrier. FBI agents lined up outside the door before heading in at speed. 

One officer said to onlookers: ‘Stand back. It’s for your own safety.’ 

It appeared at one point that FBI officers were looking for Brian Laundrie at the house.

Five FBI agents at the side of the property searched a plastic garden lidded container.

One directly pointed his pistol down inside it. Another officer stood behind a bullet proof shield next to him, while another shouted: ‘Check here!’ 

A large stack of flat packed boxes were brought into the house by a uniformed North Port police officer at 12.30pm, presumably to take away a great deal of evidence. 

Earlier on Monday, it appeared the FBI agents and police officers were settling in for a long session as supplies of food and drink were also been brought in. 

Investigators in Florida are being criticized for allowing Laundrie to go into hiding without ever being questioned in the disappearance of Petito after the FBI announced it found the body of a person ‘consistent with the description.’ 

The FBI announced that it had used ‘ground surveys’ to locate a body that is likely that of Petito on Sunday. Investigators warn, however, that they are in a race against time as the long exposure to the elements could cause the body to decompose, making it more difficult to determine exactly how she died.  

‘We don’t know when she died,’ Lawrence Kobilinsky, a forensic scientist and professor emeritus of forensic science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Daily Beast. 

‘But we do know that she’s in an environment that’s very hot. You can get decomposition in a matter of a week.’ 

Kobilinsky added: ‘It leaves you wondering what the state of the body is.

‘If it is Gabby, and if she’s been deceased since around August 24, the body could be in really bad shape.’ 

High temperatures at Grand Teton National Park regularly exceeded 80 degrees Fahrenheit and even approached 90 degrees during the weeks that Petito went missing.

Jen Bethune, a travel blogger who identified Petito’s white van in video footage shot during a chance encounter during a trip to Wyoming, told Fox News that she was happy to contribute to the investigation that could eventually lead to some closure for the girl’s family on Long Island.

‘I am so sad that we couldn’t bring her back alive, but to be able to bring her back home to her family or to help with that is everything,’ Bethune told Fox News.

‘It is so heartwarming that everything fell in place in order to make that happen.’

She added: ‘The reason why we noticed the van is because we’re from Florida and the van had Florida plates and we wanted to stop by and say hi.’

The body found in Wyoming has yet to be confirmed to be that of Petito. 

Bethune said she and a friend drove by the van, which was ‘very dark, closed up…looked like no activity.’ 

Bethune noticed the van in her blogging footage in recent days after online users urged anyone who passed by the Tetons recently to look for photos and videos for any possible clues that could shed light into Petito’s disappearance.

‘I got chills all over my body and ran straight back to my laptop, got my GoPro footage, and lo and behold Gabby’s van was on there,’ she said. 

After handing over raw footage to investigators, Bethune said she contacted Petito’s mother.

‘It was beautiful, we got to share some moments together on a FaceTime,’ she said of the conversation with Nicole Schmidt.

‘Just two moms, really just have a great cry.’ 

Meanwhile, a Wisconsin-based TikToker who was driving through Wyoming days after Petito is believed to have last made contact with her family says she picked up Laundrie as he was hitchhiking through the state alone.  

Baker told Good Morning America that she was informed by Laundrie that he had been camping alone while Petito stayed behind in their van and worked on their social media page. 

But Petito’s mother told MailOnline that she is ‘not entertaining’ Baker’s claims, saying: ‘The timeline seems way off.’

Baker said she and her boyfriend were at Grand Teton National Park in Colter Bay, Wyoming, on August 29 when Laundrie approached the couple and asked them for a ride at 5.30pm.  

‘He approached us asking for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson and we were going to Jackson that night. So I said, ya know, ‘hop in’ and he hopped in the back of my Jeep,’ Baker explained. ‘So that was kind of weird.’

She noted Laundrie, 23, was wearing ‘a backpack, a long sleeve, pants and hiking boots’ and said that before he got in the car he  offered to pay the couple $200 to give him a 10-mile ride. 

As she started heading for Jackson Hole, she says Laundrie looked for another ride.

‘He got out, and you know, he was thankful and he was kind of in a hurry. He said he was going to go across the street into the parking lot and find someone else to give him a ride, but, when we looked back 10 or 15 seconds after he got out of the vehicle he was just gone,’ she said. 

‘The timeline seems way off,’ Gabby’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, told MailOnline. 

‘Maybe she thought it was him, but I just know the timeline is off. 

‘The van left there the night of the 27th or early on the 28th. 

‘The van was in Florida on the first. It’s not possible for it to have been there on the 29th.’   

The body was found at the Spread Creek campground in Bridger-Teton National Forest on the eastern edge of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on Sunday afternoon.

An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday. Investigators hope to confirm Petito’s identity as well as nail down a cause of death. 

Meanwhile, law enforcement is drawing scrutiny for allowing Laundrie to go missing. 

Police and the FBI have no plans to continue their search on Monday for Laundrie in an alligator-infested nature reserve five miles from his home in North Port, Florida.

North Port Police said: ‘At this time, we currently believe we have exhausted all avenues in searching the grounds there.

‘Law enforcement agencies continue to search for Brian Laundrie. More updates when available.’

More than 50 police, FBI and other officers from a total of six agencies spent two days looking for Laundrie in the 25,000 acre Carlton Reserve area.

They started at the Mayakkahatchee Environmental Park, a 200 acre area linked to the Carlton Reserve.

It is where Laundrie’s parents Christopher, 62, and Roberta, 55, said he told them he was going when he left their house on Tuesday last week.

They told police it was an area Laundrie – declared a person of interest over his missing girlfriend Gabby Petito – often frequented.

The Laundrie home in a quiet residential street in North Port remained quiet this morning, with police presence at both ends of the street.

DailyMail.com has asked North Port Police if Laundrie is now being treated as a suspect, not a person of interest, following the discovery of a body in Wyoming in the search for Gabby.

The police department has not yet responded. It said all media interviews from the department are currently on hold.

Laundrie has refused to talk to cops since coming back to Florida from their cross country road trip without Gabby on September 1.

Last Thursday, North Port Police chief Todd Garrison emphatically said his department knew where Laundrie was – despite it later appearing he vanished from his home two days previously.

North Port Police Department spokesman Josh Taylor said that police are concerned Laundrie may have hurt himself in the reserve, saying it was a ‘possibility.’

‘Does anyone not think it’s possible he went out there and shot himself in the head? Sure,’ Taylor said. 

On Friday, cops arrived at the Laundrie house and took away evidence in bags. Police said the couple had requested the visit. 

Charles Jones, supervisory senior resident agent for FBI Denver, delivered the tragic news on Sunday evening. It remains unclear how investigators were able to locate her body in such amount of short time. 

After Sunday’s announcement, the Laundrie family attorney released a statement, saying, ‘The news about Gabby Petito is heartbreaking. The Laundrie family prays for Gabby and her family.’   

North Port police also released a statement. 

‘Saddened and heartbroken to learn that Gabby has been found deceased,’ they said. ‘Our focus from the start, along with the FBI, and national partners, has been to bring her home. We will continue to work with the FBI in the search for more answers.’  

Florida authorities called off the second day of their search for Laundrie – who has been named as a person-of-interest in Petito’s disappearance.

Law enforcement have been searching at an alligator-infested Florida refuge after he fled his parents’ home last week. He has refused to cooperate with police, and on Tuesday he disappeared from his family’s North Port, Florida home. 

His parents said Laundrie went for a hike and never returned home. However, they didn’t tell officials he was missing until three days later.

Now, investigators are facing criticism for their handling of the case with many saying authorities let him ‘slip through their fingers’ because they didn’t monitor him. 

‘They should’ve immediately placed him under surveillance,’ Ed Gavin, an expert in missing person cases told the New York Post. ‘Immediately.’  

‘They should’ve been all over him. The fact that they let him out of their sight, that’s a no-no. Time is of the essence with these investigations.’

When asked why they didn’t immediately call Laundrie out for questioning, Taylor told Fox News: ‘The North Port Police Department has no authority to execute a possible federal search warrant on our own. 

‘I don’t see how anyone without all the facts in this case can come up with a reasonable conclusion and opinion on the matter.’

He added: ‘There is no information that a crime took place here in North Port. That is our jurisdiction.’   

Missing persons experts also stressed that while there was likely not enough evidence to bring Laundrie in for questioning or to obtain a search warrant, investigators made several ‘missteps’ throughout the process. 

‘You always have to try to build a case and if it means surveillance to see where he’s going or what he’s doing … then you do that,’ a retired New York City police officer commented. 

‘You don’t need a search warrant to surveil somebody.’ 

Former veteran FBI agent Oliver Farache offered his opinion on the case topo, arguing that police should’ve asked for permission to look through Petito’s communications with her family.

‘I think what I would do if I was running the investigation is ask for permission to [look at Schmidt’s phone] because you don’t want to alienate the family, you want to do it in as cooperative a way as possible,’ Farache said.   

‘You want to look at the phone, see if anything was deleted, see exactly what kind of conversation they were having and looking at the whole thing, not just the last few days. And the history of the texts that mom exchanged and dad as well will give you a clue into the missing person’s mental state as well.’

However, Taylor lashed out at the critics saying that the are investigating Laundrie as a missing person: ‘These guys are full of s**t. 

‘We have a missing person case and we don’t have anyone to talk to and we don’t have any evidence of a crime on a case that’s outside our jurisdiction.

‘This guy goes for a hike in a 25,000-acre nature reserve. How are we following him? I’m up for anybody’s idea.’ 

After the FBI’s announcement, Petito’s father, Joseph, shared a tribute to his daughter on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with a photo of her adorned with a pair of angel wings, and the caption: ‘she touched the world.’  

Jones told reporters: ‘As every parent can imagine this is an incredibly difficult time for the family, and friends, our thoughts and prayers are with them. We ask that you all respect their privacy as they mourn the loss of their daughter.’ 

Richard Benson, an attorney for the Petito and Schmidt family on her mother’s side, thanked law enforcement and search and rescue teams for their efforts in finding the girl. 

‘Your tireless work and determination helped bring Gabby home to her parents,’ he said in a statement. ‘The family and I will be forever grateful.’ 

Meanwhile, demonstrators have been gathering outside the Laundrie family’s home. 

Late Friday night authorities were called to the residence as protestors were heard shouting ‘where’s Gabby’ repeatedly.

Petito, who last spoke to her family on August 25, was reported missing on September 11 after Laundrie returned home alone from a cross-country trip the couple were taking. 

Police had been searching Spread Creek Campground, where the pair were parking their van during their stay at Grand Teton National Park, according to Petito’s thedyrt.com account. 

The Teton County Coroner could be seen leaving the campground Sunday afternoon with what was believed to be be Petito’s remains. 

Jones said the campground, where the remains were found, would remain closed for the foreseeable future as officials continued their investigation.

A short while after the body was found, a rainbow appeared in the same area of Grand Teton National Park.

On Sunday morning, Petito’s parents shared a video on their ‘Find Gabby’ Facebook page from YouTuber ‘Red, White & Bethune’ that caught a Ford Transit Van with Florida plates that the posters believe to be the vehicle that Petito and Laundrie had used to travel the country. 

The video was taken on August 27 at around 6.30 pm at the Spread Creek Campground.

‘We have this video, so does the FBI,’ wrote the family on the Sunday morning post. 

‘We believe this is the van for multiple reasons.’ 

‘It’s a very important piece of information as it pretty much starts the timeline,’ Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, told MailOnline. ‘This new video of the actual van being seen on the 27th appears legit. That was the last location the van might have been seen. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle.’

‘It’s essential and there might be more videos out there that people haven’t even realized they have yet,’ she added. ‘If people were recording videos or just taking pictures, they need to start looking through their stuff.’ 

Jen Bethune, who runs the ‘Red, White & Bethune’ channel, said that she was amazed at Schmidt’s resilience in the face of the tragedy. 

‘Even though it’s not the best outcome, I’m happy that Gabby is home,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘Nicole is absolutely amazing. Her strength is so apparent.’

On August 25th or 26th, the couple chatted with the owner of a shop called ‘Rustic Row’ in Victor, Utah for about 20 minutes, East Idaho News reported on Friday.   

‘They told me they were traveling from Florida. They had just been to Teton Park and they said they were interested in going to Yellowstone and I told them they could go to the west entrance,’ the owner, who was not identified, told the outlet.

‘They seemed happy and when they left, she hollered back from the door that they were engaged and then I said congratulations.’  

The shop owner said that she contacted the FBI after seeing reports of Petito’s disappearance on the news. 

Laundrie’s parents told investigators on Friday that their son told them last Tuesday, when they last saw him, that he was headed to his frequent hiking spot Myakkahatchee Creek Environment Park, which is tied to the 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve.  

Laundrie’s attorney Steven P. Bertolino said the family went out to the reserve on Wednesday to look for him and found a note from the North Port Police Department on Brian’s mustang saying that it needed to be moved. 

The family left the car overnight ‘so he could drive back,’ Bertolino said, but when he didn’t come home Thursday, they retrieved the car, which was seen in the driveway on Friday.  

On Sunday, a team of 50 police officers from six different agencies ‘used to dealing with [the] elements’ of sprawling, alligator-infested Carlton Reserve, will search for Laundrie. 

The swathe of officers are using bloodhounds, drones and 4×4 vehicles in their search, said North Port Police information chief Josh Taylor.

Taylor told the New York Post that an experienced outdoorsman could hide out in the area for ‘months.’

They did not find anything Saturday, although police said they took some of Laundrie’s clothing from his parents’ home to provide a scent for search dogs. 

‘We have had drones in the air, we have got bloodhounds, K9s, four by four vehicles. It’s very wet, it’s muddy. There are a few unpaved dirt roads. It’s a place that people hike. There are mountain bike trails out here. The Myakkahatchee Creek runs down into the city.’

Asked if he believed there were concerns for Laundrie’s safety, Taylor said: ‘Sure, I think that’s fair to say. There is an enormous amount of pressure I’m sure on him to provide answers on what’s going on here.’ 

He could not confirm if Laundrie owns a gun.    

On Saturday, as police combed the two locations, protestors amassed outside Laundrie’s family home in North Port, chanting ‘where is Gabby?’ throughout the day. 

Just two blocks away, an 18-year-old driving to the protest with his grandmother photographed a man who looked a ‘heck’ of a lot like Laundrie about two blocks from the home, just an hour and a half before the Laundries’ family attorney reported the 23-year-old missing and investigators from the North Port Police Department showed up at the family’s home, according to the New York Post.     

Zachary Randazzo explained that when he and his grandmother turned down the street they ‘were shocked (because) what looked like his clone was walking down the street’. 

‘We then watched him as he turned down the next street over and we drove past him again to get a second look,’ he added.   

Randazzo then drove around the street a third time, and took the photo. 

‘After taking it and pulling up a picture of him online and looking at them side-by-side we were thinking, ”Wow this looks just like him, how can it not be him?” 

Petito’s parents shared a video on their ‘Find Gabby’ Facebook page early Sunday morning from YouTuber Red, White & Bethune’, that caught a Ford Transit Connect Van with Florida plates that the posters believe to be the vehicle that Petito and Laundrie had used to travel the country.

The video was taken on August 27 at around 6.30 pm at the Spread Creek Campground, where police were searching for the missing girl.

‘We have this video, so does the FBI,’ wrote the family. ‘We believe this is the van for multiple reasons.’  

Officials began their search for Petito in an area on the east side of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on Saturday and Spread Creek campground was closed around 7 am. 

The Denver FBI is the lead agency in the investigation, and set up a mini base camp several hundred feet up the blocked off road away from the main highway.  

DailyMail.com observed search and rescue vehicles carry kayaks and rafts along with off road quads enter into the dispersed campground early on Saturday – at 4PM DailyMail.com about 25 search vehicles left the campground. 

A source told DailyMail.com, the search was called off for the day because of inclement weather.  

Authorities believe that Petito’s last known location was in or around the Grand Teton National Park. 

The park itself spans more than 310,000 acres and 485 square miles the backcountry consists of several hundred square miles on the west side of the park, it’s a hike- in area only.

DailyMail.com went to several of these campsites which were in remote areas near the park- off the grid. 

Cellular phone service was spotty. 

In one dispersed campsite, Dailymail.com arrived minutes after a grizzly was observed at the side of the road digging up an animal it had previously buried.

Grizzly bears aren’t the only predators Petito would face out in the wilderness, there are red foxes, coyotes, bobcats and cougars that roam the park.