Brian Laundrie hiding in Florida’s Fort De Soto Park? Duane Chapman joins search for Gabby Petito’s boyfriend

Brian Laundrie, 23,  of North Port, Florida, United States is still missing. On September 25, 2021, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman, 68, announced that he was entering the search for the boyfriend of the late Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, 22, of Blue Point, Long Island, New York, USA. 

Laundrie is the son of Christopher John “Chris” Laundrie, 62, of North Port and Roberta Maria Vinci Laundrie, 55, of North Port. Petito is the daughter of Joseph “Joe” Petito, 42, of Vero Beach, Florida and Nichole Durivou Schmidt, 43, of Blue Point. 

On September 27, 2021, Chapman received a tip that Brian, Chris and Roberta were in Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County, Florida from September 1-3, 2021 and from September 6-8, 2021. The trio were “registered” and they “went through the gate,” Chapman told Fox News.

“They’re on camera,” Chapman said of Brian, Chris and Roberta. “They were here. We think at least if he’s not here right now, we are sure he was caught on camera as he went in the gate (and) that he was here for sure, not over in the swamp.”

Since Chris and Roberta reported Brian missing on September 17, 2021, the North Port Police Department has been searching the T. Mabry Carlton Jr. Memorial Reserve, also known as the Carlton Reserve, in Sarasota County, Florida. Even if Brian is indeed in the reserve, the chances anyone finds him alive are slim, according to survival expert Mark Burrow.

“If he’s down there in the Carlton Reserve, he’s living in hell,” USA Today quoted Burrow as saying. He said if authorities have not found evidence yet that Brian was in the Carlton Reserve, that means he probably never was.

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Fort De Soto Park has two swimming areas namely East Beach and North Beach. The park’s camping area has a camp store, modern restrooms and a laundry room.

Tipsters told Chapman what while Brian, Chris and Roberta went to Fort De Soto Park together on September 6, 2021, only two of them left on September 8, 2021. But on September 27, 2021, Chris and Roberta’s lawyer Steven Bertolino insisted that his clients do not know whether their son is.

“They are concerned about Brian and hope the FBI can locate him,” Bertolino said of Chris and Roberta. “The speculation by the public and some in the press that the parents assisted Brian in leaving the family home or in avoiding arrest on a warrant that was issued after Brian had already been missing for several days is just wrong.”