The search for Brian Laundrie is set to be scaled down after authorities have searched a nature reserve in Florida without finding the man who is a person of interest in the death of his fiancée, Gabby Petito, 22.
As reported by USA Today:
The FBI is now leading the search that will be “targeted based on intelligence,” North Port Police spokesperson Josh Taylor said Monday.
Over 75 law enforcement personnel from 16 agencies got involved in the efforts last week searching in the massive Carlton Reserve after a federal arrest warrant was put out due to events that occurred after Petito’s death. “Authorities used a diver unit, dogs, drones and ATV vehicles to search the wetlands,” the outlet noted.
“I don’t think you’re going to see those large-scale types of efforts this week,” Taylor told USA Today. “Hopefully, water will lower in areas hard to currently access.”
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also had reportedly asked for some of Brian Laundrie’s personal belongings to help them with DNA matching efforts.
Some have begun raising doubts as to whether Laundrie is, in fact, in the reserve.
A cattle rancher familiar with the location told Fox News Digital that the conditions of the area are inhospitable to humans and would be extremely difficult to survive.
“There’s no surviving out here, I don’t know how to say it,” Alan McEwen said, who has been helping North Port Police Department with the search efforts.
“McEwen has spent nearly every day of the last 30 years navigating the woods where Brian Laundrie is suspected of hiding,” the outlet added.
“I’ve been in the woods in and out all my life … I have learned a lot in my life, and one thing I know is no one is gonna survive out there for two weeks on foot,” McEwen said.
“Unless he’s got a butt like a duck and can float, he’s not in there,” McEwen said, adding that “Unless he’s got a hide like a gator, the mosquitoes will carry him right off.”
The Carlton Reserve also reportedly contains 13-foot alligators, black bears, wild boar, deadly snakes, and panthers.
McEwen suspected that Laundrie hadn’t passed away in the reserve, due to the fact that his remains would have been discovered.
“Anything dead you find in the woods, you’re gonna look up, you’re gonna see buzzards flying like crazy,” he said. “No buzzards, no body is my theory. And I haven’t seen any buzzards flying.”
The rancher also showed the outlet the various ways someone could go into the preserve and use it to head somewhere else.
“He could be anywhere,” McEwen said.
As reported by The Daily Wire:
On July 2, Gabby Petito left New York with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. They took a road trip to Colorado and Utah. On August 12, a park ranger from Utah’s Arches National Park warned Gabby Petito that her relationship with her fiancé Brian Laundrie appeared “toxic” and urged her to “find another path.”
The funeral for Petito took place on Sunday, and hundreds of people were in attendance. Petito’s father told the people who were there that he didn’t want them to be sad.
He added, “Gabby didn’t live that way. That wasn’t her way… If you knew Gabby, she was always a pretty happy girl. People would gravitate to her; her nature was always to smile and treat everybody kind.”