North Port Police Say Laundrie Likely Died 2 Days After Petito Reported Missing: Report

Updated: 11:15 a.m. Friday

NORTH PORT, FL — Despite North Port police mistaking Brian Laundrie’s mother for him while surveilling the family, allowing him to slip away from their Florida home Sept. 13, a spokesperson for the city said he doesn’t believe this “misidentification” impacted their investigation.

“Other than confusion, it likely changed nothing. There is a very good possibility that Brian was already deceased,” Josh Taylor told WFLA.

That means authorities believe Laundrie was already dead two days after his fiancée, Gabby Petito, was officially reported missing on Sept. 11.

In the early days of the investigation into Petito’s disappearance — before her body was found Sept. 19 in the mountains of Wyoming — North Port police had said they were keeping a close eye on Laundrie, a person of interest in the case, and his family in Florida.

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. He returned home alone to Florida in Petito's van Sept. 1.

Brian Entin, a reporter with News Nation, tweeted recently that police even put up hidden cameras in strategic places around their North Port home, including in a neighbor’s yard. But police admitted to a key error in keeping tabs on Laundrie.

Police were watching the Laundrie home since Sept. 11 — the day Petito’s family reported her missing and before Laundrie disappeared — and have since admitted they made some mistakes during their investigation.

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Officers watching the Laundrie home confused Brian Laundrie’s mother, Roberta Laundrie, for her son, allowing him to flee, WINK News reported.

They saw Brian Laundrie leave the home in the family’s gray Ford Mustang on Sept. 13. Days later, on Sept. 15, they thought they saw him return with the car, but it was really his mother.

“They’re kind of built similarly,” Taylor told WINK.

Entin tweeted Monday that Taylor said there was also some confusion because Roberta Laundrie was wearing a baseball cap.

When Brian Laundrie’s parents reported him missing Sept. 17, police were surprised to learn it had been days since they had seen their son. He left the home Sept. 13 to go hiking at the Carlton Reserve.

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

During a Sept. 15 news conference, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison even said investigators knew Laundrie’s whereabouts.

In reality, Laundrie drove the Mustang to the preserve Sept. 13 and never returned. When he didn’t come home that night, his parents drove to the area to look for him. They didn’t find him but saw their car and left it there in case he needed it to get home.

Police put an abandoned-vehicle notice on the car the next day, warning it would be towed if it wasn’t moved. Laundrie’s parents drove it home Sept. 15, which is when police mistook Roberta Laundrie for her son.

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Authorities searched for Laundrie for more than a month, focusing on the Carlton Reserve and Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, which is connected to the reserve by a 12-mile trail.

During that time, they used various methods to comb the swampy reserve and the adjacent park, including K-9 dogs, ATVs, drones, helicopters, dive teams and airboats.

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. The FBI used dental records to match the remains to Laundrie.

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

On Tuesday, North Port police refuted false reports that DNA from the remains didn’t match Laundrie, sharing a statement from the District 12 medical examiner.

“The identity of the remains found at the Carlton Reserve on Oct. 20 was confirmed by comparison to known dental records of Brian Laundrie,” the statement read. “No DNA analysis has yet been performed on the remains. Samples will be submitted for DNA testing once the examination of the remains by the medical examiner’s office is complete.”

With a forensic anthropologist analyzing Brian Laundrie’s remains, Steven Bertolino, the Laundrie family’s attorney, told Fox News Wednesday that autopsy results, including the cause and time of his death, aren’t expected for another two to three weeks.