Arrest warrant issued for slain US woman Gabby Petito’s fiancé Brian Laundrie
- Laundrie has been indicted for bank fraud after making more than US$1,000 in unauthorised debit card withdrawals during the period Petito went missing
- The warrant will allow law enforcement to continue pursuing him while the investigation continues into Petito’s homicide, an FBI agent said
Federal officials say the fiancé of Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, whose body was found at a national park in Wyoming after a cross country trip with him, has been indicted for unauthorised use of a debit card as searchers continued looking for him in Florida swampland.
The federal grand jury indictment filed in US District Court in Wyoming does not explain who the card belonged to. But it indicates Brian Laundrie made unauthorised withdrawals worth more than US$1,000 during the period in which Petito went missing.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said an arrest warrant issued for Laundrie will allow law enforcement to continue pursuing him, while the investigation continues into Petito’s homicide.
Schneider urged anyone with knowledge of Laundrie’s role in Petito’s death of his whereabouts to contact the FBI. How Petito was killed has not been revealed pending the final results of an autopsy by the Teton County, Wyoming, coroner.
In Florida, search teams ended a sixth day of searching the swampy, alligator-infested wilderness of Carlton Reserve park as darkness fell on Thursday, saying they would resume the effort on Friday.
The search began after Laundrie told his parents he was going there, several days after he returned alone on September 1 from his trip out west with Petito.
Authorities have not said why they are convinced Laundrie, whom police call a “person of interest” in the case, may still be somewhere inside the more than 24,000-acre (9,700-hectare) wilderness preserve more than a week after he told family members he was headed there to hike alone.
Many Americans have closely followed the case since Petito, 22, was reported missing on September 11.
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Petito and Laundrie left her home state of New York in July, heading west on what they called a “van life” trip. They posted photos to social media as they travelled through Kansas, Colorado and Utah.
On August 12, an emergency caller reported that Laundrie was slapping and hitting Petito in front of the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah.
Moab police pulled the couple over in their van on a highway near Arches National Park. Body camera footage of that encounter shows Petito sobbing as she describes a fight between the couple that she said escalated into her slapping Laundrie as he drove the van. The officers did not detain Petito or Laundrie but told them to spend the night apart.
Additional reporting by Reuters
