Update: FBI reported that dental records confirm the human remains found in a Florida nature reserve are those of Brian Laundrie.
The Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito case has a new development.
On Thursday morning, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno held a press conference about the search by law enforcement in Florida for fugitive Brian Laundrie given that human remains have just been found.
These are “challenging times,” said Marceno. Everyone wants to know every detail of the case at every moment, he also said. But he also said that the physical and logistical conditions have been and are very difficult for law enforcement to manage and cover, given that areas had been underwater for some time; and that he is proud of the work of law enforcement in the case.
On Wednesday, the FBI confirmed in Florida that investigators found what appear to be human remains, “along with personal items, such as a backpack and notebook, belonging to Brian Laundrie.”
The findings occurred shortly after Brian Laundrie’s parents, Chris and Robert Laundrie of North Port, Fla., personally searched the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park for their missing son, Fox News and other outlets reported.
People are already asking questions about the presence in the Florida park of the Laundrie parents, however.
Laundrie has been the sole person of interest in the disappearance and subsequent homicide of his girlfriend, Gabby Petito. Laundrie himself then went missing.
The case has garnered national and international interest since September. It also renewed the interest in a number of other missing persons cases.
A coroner ruled this month that Gabby Petito died by manual strangulation.
Related: Prayers for Petito and Other Faith Stories
On Sunday, September 20, the FBI announced that a body found in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park appeared “consistent with the description” of Gabby Petito. After an autopsy was performed, the FBI confirmed that the remains indeed belonged to Petito. The discovery of the remains came after a multi-state search for the young woman who was reported missing by her Florida family in early September.
Laundrie was named a person of interest in the case after he returned home alone from the couple’s cross-country trip in Petito’s van on Sept. 1—and refused to talk to authorities about his girlfriend’s absence or whereabouts.
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—CNJ Staff