After a new report revealed how police lost track of Brian Laundrie, they are now making a prediction when it comes to Brian Laundrie’s time of death. As Mamas Uncut previously reported, Laundrie’s remains were found on October 20 after he disappeared from his parent’s Florida home on September 13.
Before his disappearance, Laundrie and his fiancé Gabby Petito had been on a cross-country trip in a white Ford van that they modified together. However, Laundrie returned to Florida without Petito, who lost contact with her parents in August, on September 1.
Police Clarify Statement After Revealing They Confused Brian Laundrie With His Mom While Surveilling Him
Now, in a new statement given to People, North Port Police spokesperson Josh Taylor went on to further elaborate on his earlier statement regarding why they believed Laundrie was in his home when he really was not.
“This misidentification did not have a big impact on costs and the investigation. Other than confusion, it likely changed nothing,” Taylor told People. “There is a very good possibility that Brian was already deceased. He still needed to be found. We just wanted people to better understand why we thought we knew Brian was in his home.”
By September 11, Petito was officially reported missing and her body was discovered in Wyoming on September 19. It was after she was reported missing that North Port police began surveilling Brian Laundrie.
To this day, Brian remains the only person of interest in her homicide by manual strangulation. However, despite using cameras to surveil Brian Laundrie, police somehow lost track of him but didn’t realize it until his parents told them on September 17 that he left home on September 13 and never returned.
One day after North Port police told the public that they were aware of Laundrie’s whereabouts, his parents revealed that Brian left to go on a hike on September 13 and never returned. According to North Port Police spokesperson Josh Taylor, after investigators saw Laundrie leave his parents’ home in his grey Mustang on September 13, they saw the vehicle return to the home two days later.
As Taylor continued to tell WINK, investigators believed they saw Brian get out of the mustang, but they now realized it wasn’t Brian at all. As it turns out, the person who got out of the car was Brian’s mother, Roberta Laundrie.
“They’re kind of built similarly,” Taylor told WINK before talking about the moment his parents told authorities that they hadn’t seen him in days. “That was certainly news to us that they had not seen him.” Roberta was reportedly wearing a ball cap at the time.
“We thought that we [had] seen Brian initially come back into that home on that Wednesday. But, we now know that that wasn’t true.”
According to Taylor, while wearing a ball cap, Roberta drove Brian’s car back from the park where they told police they believed he went. “So, who does that? Right? Like, if you think your son’s missing since Tuesday, you’re going to bring his car back to the home? So it didn’t make sense that anyone would do that if he wasn’t there. So the individual getting out with a baseball cap we thought was Brian,” Taylor told WINK.
And now, as further reports reveal, by the time they learned of his disappearance, police believe Laundrie was already dead. In addition to his skeletal remains being discovered at the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, Brian’s dry bag and notebook were also recovered.
Brian Laundrie’s cause of death has been labeled as “inconclusive,” and now additional forensics are examining his remains for further clues. As the Laundrie’s attorney Steven Bertolino revealed, his family will not be having a memorial for their son.
The investigation into Gabby Petito’s homicide is still ongoing. Police say Laundrie’s notebook may be salvageable, but it still remains to be seen if it will bring investigators any clear answers. Sadly, Petito’s father does not believe that will be the case.
Joe Petito told TMZ that he doesn’t believe anything Brian may or may not have written in his notebook will bring him any closure, instead, “the only reason he would want to know what Brian wrote would be for his own selfish gratification.”
Petito’s parents have been using Gabby’s story to create a movement that helps other people involved in domestically violent relationships find safety.
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