This police camera video provided by The Moab Police Department shows Brian Laundrie talking to a police officer after police pulled over the van he was traveling in with his girlfriend, Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, near the entrance to Arches National Park on Aug. 12, 2021. (The Moab Police Department via AP)
Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.Police monitoring the Florida home of Brian Laundrie, the deceased fiancé of Gabby Petito and primary person of interest in her homicide, confused him with his mother three days after the 23-year-old supposedly left home for the last time. “They’re built kind of similarly,” North Port Police public information officer Josh Taylor told Southwest Florida local news outlet Wink News on Monday.
When Petito was reported missing, on Sept. 11, North Port Police set up cameras outside Laundrie’s residence. Laundrie had returned home alone Sept. 1, ten days before Petito was reported missing by her parents, after an extended, cross-state road trip with her over the summer. Her body was found on Sept. 19 and later ruled a homicide. On Sept. 13, police say they watched Laundrie leave the home and then three days later on Sept. 16, they watched “him” return in his silver Ford Mustang.
“All I’m going to say is we know where Brian Laundrie is at,” North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said on Sept 16.
But yesterday, several days after Laundrie’s “skeletal” remains were discovered in a Sarasota County Park, North Port Police admitted they’d made a big mistake: The person they saw entering the home on Sept. 16 was actually Laundrie’s mom in a baseball cap.
Police say they assumed Laundrie’s mother wouldn’t be the one to return in her son’s car and didn’t realize the confusion until Sept. 17, although the department waited over a month to admit the error, which they blamed on the amount of activity near the home. The department also reiterated that Laundrie was only being monitored and was not wanted for any crime at the time.
“When the family reported him [missing] on Friday, that was certainly news to us that they had not seen him,” Taylor told Wink. “We thought that we seen Brian initially come back into that home on that Wednesday. But we now know that that wasn’t true.”
The thoroughness of law enforcement has played a major role in the ongoing investigation into Petito’s, and now Brian Laundrie’s, mysterious deaths. On Aug. 12, weeks prior to her going missing, both Petito and Laundrie were pulled over by Utah police in Moab after a patron of a nearby bar called 911 to report that Laundrie had slapped her.
Body camera footage of the traffic stop showed a sobbing Petito and an unbothered Laundrie explaining their version of events at the bar. Petito admitted to the cops that Laundrie had hit her, although she said she hit him first. She also said Laundrie scratched her. Laundrie, meanwhile, nonchalantly called his fiancè “crazy” and downplayed any dispute they may have had. Police didn’t report the encounter since neither Laundrie nor Petito wanted to pursue charges. This also isn’t the first case of mistaken identity in the course of the investigation. Earlier this month, U.S. Marshals ambushed a hiker in North Carolina who they say looked like Brian Laundrie.
When Petito was reported missing, on Sept. 11, North Port Police set up cameras outside Laundrie’s residence. Laundrie had returned home alone Sept. 1, ten days before Petito was reported missing by her parents, after an extended, cross-state road trip with her over the summer. Her body was found on Sept. 19 and later ruled a homicide. On Sept. 13, police say they watched Laundrie leave the home and then three days later on Sept. 16, they watched “him” return in his silver Ford Mustang.
“All I’m going to say is we know where Brian Laundrie is at,” North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said on Sept 16.
But yesterday, several days after Laundrie’s “skeletal” remains were discovered in a Sarasota County Park, North Port Police admitted they’d made a big mistake: The person they saw entering the home on Sept. 16 was actually Laundrie’s mom in a baseball cap.
Police say they assumed Laundrie’s mother wouldn’t be the one to return in her son’s car and didn’t realize the confusion until Sept. 17, although the department waited over a month to admit the error, which they blamed on the amount of activity near the home. The department also reiterated that Laundrie was only being monitored and was not wanted for any crime at the time.
“When the family reported him [missing] on Friday, that was certainly news to us that they had not seen him,” Taylor told Wink. “We thought that we seen Brian initially come back into that home on that Wednesday. But we now know that that wasn’t true.”
The thoroughness of law enforcement has played a major role in the ongoing investigation into Petito’s, and now Brian Laundrie’s, mysterious deaths. On Aug. 12, weeks prior to her going missing, both Petito and Laundrie were pulled over by Utah police in Moab after a patron of a nearby bar called 911 to report that Laundrie had slapped her.
Body camera footage of the traffic stop showed a sobbing Petito and an unbothered Laundrie explaining their version of events at the bar. Petito admitted to the cops that Laundrie had hit her, although she said she hit him first. She also said Laundrie scratched her. Laundrie, meanwhile, nonchalantly called his fiancè “crazy” and downplayed any dispute they may have had. Police didn’t report the encounter since neither Laundrie nor Petito wanted to pursue charges. This also isn’t the first case of mistaken identity in the course of the investigation. Earlier this month, U.S. Marshals ambushed a hiker in North Carolina who they say looked like Brian Laundrie.