Gaby Petito: Body found confirmed as missing blogger
The body found inside a Wyoming national park is missing blogger Gabby Petitio, the FBI confirmed on Monday.
A coroner determined that Petito was a homicide victim, but did not disclose a cause of death pending final autopsy results.
Her body was found Sunday near an undeveloped camping area in remote northern Wyoming along the border of Grand Teton National Park, after the 22-year old disappeared months after she set out on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie.
Meanwhile, authorities continued to search a swampy Florida preserve area near the home of Petito’s boyfriend. Police in North Port, Florida, said investigators returned Tuesday to the Carlton Reserve to look for Brian Laundrie.
Nothing of note was found, and the search was expected to continue Wednesday.
Investigators began searching the 24,000-acre Florida nature preserve over the weekend, focusing on the area after Laundrie’s parents told police he may have gone there.
Authorities are using helicopters, drones, dogs and officers in all-terrain vehicles in their search for Laundrie. About 75% of the search area is underwater.
On Monday, the FBI went to Laundrie’s parents’ home in North Port and removed several boxes and towed away a car neighbors said Laundrie’s mother typically used.
Laundrie and Petito had been living with his parents at the North Port home before the road trip on which she died.
The young couple had set out in July in a converted van to visit national parks in the West. They got into a fight along the way, and Laundrie was alone when he returned in the van to his parents’ home Sept. 1, police said.
Laundrie has been named a person of interest in the case, but his whereabouts in recent days were unknown.
Petito’s father, Joseph, posted on social media an image of a broken heart above a picture of his daughter, with the message: “She touched the world.”
Miss Petito’s family had been pleading for the Laundrie family to tell them where their son last saw her.