Agents search Wyoming for woman, Florida for boyfriend
ORLANDO, Fla. — Police searched a vast Florida wildlife reserve Saturday for 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, a person of interest in the disappearance of his girlfriend, Gabrielle Petito, while across the country the FBI hunted for clues about the missing woman in Wyoming.
More than 50 police officers, FBI agents and members of other law enforcement agencies searched the 24,000-acre Carlton Reserve in the Sarasota, Fla. area of the Gulf Coast.
Authorities used drones, scent-detecting dogs and all-terrain vehicles in the reserve, which has more than 100 miles of trails.
Meanwhile, the FBI in Denver said Saturday that agents were conducting ground surveys in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, with help from the National Park Service and local law enforcement agencies, seeking clues to Petito’s disappearance. Her last known contact with family members was from the park.
Laundrie and Petito, 22, left in July on a cross-country trek in a converted van to visit national parks in the U.S. West. Police said Laundrie was alone when he drove the van back to his parents’ home in North Port, Fla., on Sept. 1. Petito’s family filed a missing persons report Sept. 11 with police in Suffolk County, N.Y.
Investigators in Florida were hopeful Laundrie was somewhere in the wildlife reserve. Family members believe he went there with only a backpack. A North Port police spokesman said he could survive in the reserve for some time, depending on his survival skills.