Police are scouring a vast Florida preserve in search of Gabby Petito's fiance

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

National

Police are scouring a vast Florida preserve in search of Gabby Petito’s fiance

By Timothy Bella
Today at 1:05 p.m. EDT

Law enforcement officials are scouring a vast Florida preserve Saturday for Brian Laundrie, the fiance of a 22-year-old woman reported missing after he returned from a cross-country trip without her and refused to speak with authorities.

The North Port Police Department announced on Twitter that it is working with the FBI and agency partners to search the Carlton Reserve, a nearly 25,000-acre prairie and wetlands area located in Sarasota County, in the southwest part of the state.

“His family says they believe he entered the area earlier this week,” the department stated.

Laundrie and Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito had been living out of a van and traveling to national parks in recent months, sharing posts on Instagram from scenic locations. But there had been at least one troubling incident during the journey. Body-camera footage released by police in Moab, Utah, shows the pair got into an emotional fight before she disappeared.

{snip}

Katie Shepherd contributed to this report.

By Timothy Bella
Timothy Bella is a staff writer and editor for the General Assignment team, focusing on national news. His work has appeared in outlets such as Esquire, the Atlantic, New York magazine and the Undefeated. Twitter https://twitter.com/TimBella

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/17/gabby-petito-laundrie-bodycam-video/

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Police are scouring a vast Florida preserve in search of Gabby Petito’s fiance

Link to tweet

[garybeck]

1. you can run but you can't hide. i give him 48 hours and he'll be in custody. n/t

[twin_ghost]

3. Or he could commit suicide and we will never find her body.

[NurseJackie]

5. Are there alligators in that part of Florida?

[Escurumbele]

7. There are alligators in all parts of Florida...If there is water? There are alligators.

That would be a way for him to commit suicide, just jump in a lake, it would not take long for a few alligators to take him.

[obamanut2012]

10. Deeper than a puddle, we can find a gator there

Seriously.

[MySideOfTown]

11. Central FL here.

yes there be alligators, there. [link:http:// google.com sarasota alligator attack]

[XanaDUer2]

53. Oh yeah

they love golf courses, too

[Tommymac]

2. Paywall. nt

[Crazyleftie]

4. Why?

Supposedly, according to the police, there was no crime committed.......

[PSPS]

6. "they believe he entered the area earlier this week"

Is this Laundrie family wealthy? You'd think that a "person of interest" who "refused to speak with authorities" would have a detective parked outside their house all the time and follow anyone who leaves. This apparent "hands off" treatment implies a white family of wealth. The media circus certainly goes with such territory.

[LeftInTX]

19. Middle class

[bahboo]

8. just might be some hungry gators....

prowling around....

[Escurumbele]

9. I feel for the girl and the girl's family. I hope there is a miracle and she is still alive.

If he did it he is an imbecile, how would he think that he would not be the first person the police would go after?

[iluvtennis]

12. This is so sad. My heart goes out to her parents and family & friends. n/t

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

13. The hunt is on, police has access to both their phones now, tracking

[Orrex]

14. Well, I thought he was guilty before, but this makes him look totally innocent

[Ford_Prefect]

15. It's gonna take a long, long time to check each and every 'Gator.

[melm00se]

16. Not far from where I live.

[COL Mustard]

17. Things That Make You Say "Hmmmmm"

I wonder where they'll find HIS body, and if he left any clues as to where HER body is located?

I mean you just know this isn't going to end well. So sad.

[NullTuples]

18. They've protected him this far...

Makes me feel like they sent him off to Montana, then sent the cops to a "vast Florida preserve".

[NH Ethylene]

26. That was my first thought, that they helped him escape the area.

And pointing to the swamps would get them off the hook for aiding & abetting (if he is ever determined to have committed a crime).

[getagrip_already]

34. Harboring or aiding a fugitive from justice....

Is a crime in itself. So is obstruction.

.....

[NH Ethylene]

36. Except he hasn't been charged with a crime.

I hope they get the evidence together and formally charge him - soon!

[ZonkerHarris]

20. Check in Mexico or S.A. I think his parents would help him leave the country.

this is a diversion

[honest.abe]

22. Yeah I think so too.

They wouldn't give LE access before why are they helping now?? It smells fake.

[onethatcares]

21. if the pythons don't get him

or the mosquitos drive him up a levee, or a gator doesn't pull him into a den, or fire ants tear him up, he'll want to get out of that area as fast as possible.

Like everywhere else in Floriduh, if there's a sign that says, "Inpenatrable area" it means just that. You get 30 ft in and you get lost.

He doesn't look like someone that spent a lot of time in the swamp.

[Hulk]

23. I have totally missed something here.....

Who the hell is this person?...and why should the whole media circus be focused on her where about?

I figured when the info started flashing across fox-garbage outlet, it was just another distraction to keep their racist audience glued to the tv screen. Now I see it’s on ALL the networks.

Is this somebody “special”, or are we ALL fixated on young white, blond females in peril?

[LeftInTX]

25. She has her own youtube "show"

It's probably on all the outlets, not just fox.

If Fox really wants to push "white, blondes in peril", they could have picked someone else.

[NH Ethylene]

27. It captured interest because there was a police video of them fighting at the roadside.

While on a cross-country trip. Days later, he came home - in her car - without her. He refused to speak with police about what happened to her. They are searching for her in the Grand Tetons and now he is missing.

It is a unique story, which makes it really interesting. It doesn't hurt that she is blond and pretty, just 22, and was sobbing in the video.

[honest.abe]

32. Its a bizarre disturbing news story.

Young Youtube star goes missing and boyfriend shows up 1000's miles away with her van and refuses to speak to police.

Not sure something like this happens every day.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

43. Young hot blonde Vlogger Girl Gone Missing, BF shows up driving her van, wont talk, HE Gone Missing

Mystery clues, millions of internet sleuths working hard on the case, if there is a crime, no evidence for that yet even

Oh yeah, all in the script for Media Frenzy

[Kali]

38. as was explained to me when I asked who the hell they were...

pretty white girl goes missing. "news" distractions. this used to be a common type of story before the orange troll sucked up everybody's focus.

[agalisgv]

24. Seems like a "Florida Man"

[MontanaMama]

28. So he drove home with her body from WY

and dumped it in FL? Is that what they’re saying here? Yikes.

[LisaL]

29. No, they are looking for him in FL.

He has gone missing.

[MontanaMama]

30. Oh sorry...

I thought they were looking for her there. I misread the story. Thx.

[Sabrielo]

31. He's behaving in a suspicious manner

We'll see.

[honest.abe]

33. Ya think?

Hard to imagine a more suspicious manner. The dude is clearly hiding something.

[SoFlaBro]

35. Guilty!!

n/t

[emmaverybo]

52. At least HE thinks he is. His behavior is a classic example of "consciousness of guilt." NT

[NBachers]

37. "If the skeeters don't get him, then the gators will."

[LeftInTX]

39. Skeeters don't bother me, but palmetto bugs (aka American Cockroaches) send me packing!

They live outside here. They run 5 ft per sec or 3.5 MPH...Faster than the average human and when I see one outside or inside, I can't move fast enough and I usually sprain something trying to escape.

Am I the only person with this horrible phobia?

[Judi Lynn]

40. Uh, oh. I looked for a photo of a palmetto bug. Now I understand your concern!

Jesus H. Christ!

[Judi Lynn]

41. I'd rather turn myself into the police, if I were that guy, than to try to outrun Palmetto Bugs! 😲😲😲

[Farmer-Rick]

47. When hurricanes hit Florida, TN gets storms with passengers

East TN gets the remains of most big hurricanes and tropical storms that hit in the south. We get Florida's hurricane remnants that frequently have tropical insects in them.

A couple of years ago after a heavy rain from the remains of a hurricane, I went out to see what the dogs were barking about. They had surrounded a fist sized big black bug. It looked a lot like that roach or palmetto bug. It was still alive and scampering. I thought it was an invasion but we only got one like that. It died a couple hours later.

[NBachers]

42. Having lived in Miami for 16 years, I'm well acquainted with speeding and flying palmetto bugs.

My brother and I had to clean out a Winn Dixie storage room that had been filled nearly to the ceiling with cardboard boxes packed haphazardly with old shelving. Closed off for years, this room had become a palmetto bug civilization. Every time we picked up a box, swarms of palmetto bugs would come pouring out in a panic. They'd fly into our hair and get tangled; they'd crawl down the back of our shirts. They'd crawl across the ceiling and drop down on us. Every time we took a step, they'd be crunching underfoot.

A couple years later, I was working on a construction site. The offer was made for me to get paid to stay on the site as a guard. A friend knew someone with a 27' old Airstream-type trailer. He towed it down and parked it on the site. I slept in it, unknown that it had become a palmetto bug motel because it had been sitting unused for a long time. As I tried to sleep in it, they'd crawl around on me and actually try to take bites out of my ears. They'd fly at me and land on me. Needless to say, the place got a thorough bombing and cleanout.

This, in addition to the routine palmetto bug horror atrocities that are part and parcel of living in Miami.

Sometimes, guys would get caught in pot boats down in The Keys. They'd dive overboard and swim into the mangroves, trying to elude the authorities. The cops wouldn't even try to hunt 'em down. They'd just station themselves out on the roads, and wait for the guys to run to the cops to escape the night-time mosquitoes.

[LeftInTX]

50. Yikes! They're all over my yard here in South Texas.

They're also in my garage and get in my house.

A few years ago, I had plague of them in a bathroom. All the spraying in the world didn't make a dent. It turns out the drain pipe to the unused bathtub had come off and they were coming right in from the sewer and nesting in bath tub void.

However, I have horrible phobia of them. I'm from Wisconsin and my first experience was driving a new car for the first time and a thing was running all over the car. I had to pull over. I was afraid I would get in a wreck. It created a horrible phobia that has never gone away.

Texas natives don't seem to have my phobia. They just swat them and get on with their lives.

[twodogsbarking]

44. Maybe he is somewhere else

and this is a snipe hunt.

[obamanut2012]

54. Bingo

I agree with you. Misdirection by his family.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

45. A throng of Internet sleuths are on the Gabby Petito case. Why has it sparked so much interest?

National

A throng of Internet sleuths are on the Gabby Petito case. Why has it sparked so much interest?

By Caroline Anders and Meryl Kornfield
Yesterday at 6:11 p.m. EDT

{snip}

“You’ve got this beautiful young couple, supposedly in love, making this romantic adventure across the country, and then something goes very bad,” said Scott Bonn, a criminologist who studies why certain crimes become cultural touchstones.

Though interest in this case has been particularly fervent on social media, Bonn noted the public’s preoccupation with the unknown predates the Internet. If Petito were a woman of color, he added, the national fixation on the case would not likely exist.

“It’s about our culture and our society,” he said. “We place a priority on whiteness. We place a priority on youth and on our expectations of physical beauty.”

Petito’s age is the prime age of TikTok users, said Amanda Brennan, senior director of trends for XX Artists, a digital marketing agency. That could be another reason more users would identify with her case, Brennan said. She compared the case to that of Elisa Lam. Amateur investigators pored over her Tumblr page after she disappeared from a Los Angeles hostel in 2013.

{snip}

By Caroline Anders
Caroline Anders is a reporting intern on the General Assignment desk. Twitter https://twitter.com/caroIineanders

By Meryl Kornfield
Meryl Kornfield is a staff writer on the general assignment desk of The Washington Post. Twitter https://twitter.com/merylkornfield

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

46. A possible tragedy for the families involved but a MYSTERY for everyone else, people love a mystery

Simple as that.

Especially a possible murder mystery playing out in real time, no waiting for a NBC Dateline Episode on TV

[cadoman]

51. if you only knew how many public resources go to finding white people lost in parks...

It's pretty fucking nuts, but yes the government spends billions of dollars saving crazy ass white people from their national and state park adventures.

How do I know? Well one of my crazy ass white family members got lost in the park and once your white ass is lost in the park it becomes as important as Matt Damon's character in The Martian.