Sarasota County Sheriff Says Brian Laundrie Likely Took His Own Life: Report

Updated: 5:24 p.m., Monday

VENICE, FL — During a panel of local law enforcement leaders speaking on a range of topics — including Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito — at Friday’s South County Tiger Bay Club meeting in Venice, Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman said Laundrie likely took his own life.

Laundrie was a person of interest in the strangulation death of Petito, his fiancée, whose body was found near a Wyoming national park Sept. 19.

His skeletal remains, including a portion of his skull, were found Oct. 20 in the Carlton Reserve and the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, along with several of his belongings, after more than a month of searching for him. The FBI used dental records to match the remains to Laundrie.

No cause of death could be determined after an Oct. 22 autopsy, and Laundrie’s bones were sent to a forensic anthropologist for further examination.

“That guy went out there and by all accounts probably committed suicide and he was right out there where we thought he was,” Hoffman said, according to the Independent.

Speaking on the same panel, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison told the audience he stands by his officers, despite mistakes made during the early days of their investigation into Petito's disappearance as they kept tabs on Laundrie.

The city’s public information officer, Josh Taylor, said last week that North Port police mistook Laundrie's mother for him while surveilling the family, allowing Brian Laundrie to slip away from their Florida home Sept. 13.

Garrison fielded questions about the case — and errors his agency made in keeping an eye on Laundrie — during the meeting, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

Laundrie and Petito, both Long Island, New York, natives living with his family in Florida, were traveling across the country visiting national parks this summer when she disappeared at the end of August. Her body was found weeks later near Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.

Laundrie returned home alone to Florida in Petito's van Sept. 1 and was reported missing by his parents Sept. 17.

Taylor previously said Laundrie left his family’s home in his parents' Ford Mustang Sept. 13 to go hiking at the Carlton Reserve. Days later, on Sept. 15, police thought they saw him return with the car, but it was actually his mother.

The spokesperson said the mother and son are “kind of built similarly” and his mother was wearing a baseball cap when she brought the car home from where her son had left it near Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park.

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During a Sept. 15 news conference, Garrison said investigators knew Laundrie’s whereabouts. When his parents reported him missing, police were surprised to learn it had been days since they had seen their son.

"When the family reported him (missing) on Friday (Sept. 17). That was certainly news to us that they had not seen him," Taylor said. "We thought that we (had) seen Brian initially come back into that home on that Wednesday."

Garrison spoke at length about the mistakes made while surveilling the Laundrie family during Friday’s event at the South County Tiger Bay Club.

“As a leader, what do I do?” the police chief said. “Do I not tell the public what’s going on? Do we conceal it? Cover it up?”

He added, “No, people want open, transparency and honesty from their law enforcement officials. Yes, we made a mistake. It was human error, but I still stand behind my team.”

Garrison told the audience his team watching the Laundrie family’s home reported seeing Brian Laundrie enter the house, the Herald-Tribune said.

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Because of this, he believed Petito’s fiancé was at home when he spoke at the Sept. 15 news conference. When he learned Laundrie was missing, “there was nobody more surprised about that than me,” he said.

When North Port police officers joined the FBI to meet with Laundrie’s parents Sept. 17, “I sat with the deputy chief in my office, hoping that they would find Brian hiding in a back bedroom,” Garrison added. “I was hoping, maybe it was a ploy. It wasn't.”

He also reportedly told the event’s attendees that Laundrie and Petito, who lived in Florida for the past two years, were no longer state residents when they left for their road trip.

“What a lot of people don’t know, in June, Gabby and Brian moved out of their location and put a lot of stuff into storage and they changed their address and moved to New York and from there, they left for their cross-country adventure,” Garrison said.

Read more at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.