(Reuters) -Police and FBI agents investigating the disappearance of Gabby Petito searched the Florida home of her fiance’s parents on Monday, one day after finding a body in Wyoming that matched her description.
The search of Brian Laundrie’s family residence marked the latest turn in a story that has captivated Americans and made international headlines: the vanishing of 22-year-old Petitio during a cross-country road trip as she documented “van life” with Laundrie on social media.
The FBI’s Tampa office said on Twitter that it was executing a search warrant at the North Port home on Florida’s Gulf Coast days after Laundrie himself went missing. Local TV stations showed images of the yellow suburban house surrounded by police vehicles and marked off with crime scene tape.
Police have called Laundrie, who returned from the road trip on Sept. 1 without Petito, a “person of interest”.
North Port police said on Monday that the search for Laundrie had shifted away from the nearly 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve, a vast wilderness area near North Port.
Laundrie’s family told police on Friday that they had not seen him since the 23-year-old man left three days earlier, telling them he planned to hike in the reserve.
“We currently believe we have exhausted all avenues in searching of the grounds there,” North Port police said on Monday. “Law enforcement agencies continue to search for Brian Laundrie.”
At the Laundrie home police could be seen on local TV images towing away his silver Ford Mustang.
BODY FOUND IN WYOMING
Search and rescue crews on Sunday found a body in a remote area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, which an FBI spokesman said was “consistent” with the 5’5, 110-pound Petito. An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday.
The body was found less than 1,000 feet (300 meters) from where two travel bloggers filmed the couple’s white van parked along a dirt road near Spread Creek on the evening of Aug. 27, two days after Petito’s last confirmed contact with her family.
Members of Petito’s family reported her missing on Sept. 11, 10 days after Laundrie returned home to North Port without her. Before disappearing, Laundrie had refused to speak with investigators and retained a lawyer.
Following the discovery of the body, the missing woman’s father, Joseph Petito, posted a photograph of his daughter on Twitter showing her standing between two painted wings. The image was captioned with a broken heart and the words: “She touched the world.”
Petito and Laundrie left her home state of New York in late June or early July, heading west in the van with plans to visit national parks along the way.
Petito posted her last photo on Aug. 25. Her family believes she was headed to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when they last heard from her. She was last seen walking out of a hotel in Salt Lake City on Aug. 24.
Last week, police in Moab, Utah, released body camera footage of an Aug. 12 encounter two of their officers had with the couple during a traffic stop.
In the video, Petito is sobbing as she describes a quarrel with Laundrie that she says became physical at times. The officers did not detain the couple but insisted they spend that night separately, Petito in the van and Laundrie at a hotel.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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