FBI agents spent nearly eight hours on Monday searching the home of Brian Laundrie, the fiancé of missing social media influencer Gabby Petito.
In July, Petito, 22, and Laundrie, 23, left New York on a road trip to explore national parks in the western United States. On Sept. 1, Laundrie arrived at his parents' house in Florida without Petito; her parents reported her missing on Sept. 11, about two weeks after they last spoke.
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Laundrie is a person of interest in Petito's disappearance, but law enforcement officials have not been able to interview him and his whereabouts are currently unknown. On Monday, FBI agents questioned Laundrie's parents — who said they last saw their son on Sept. 14 — and seized electronics from their North Port, Florida, home. In a statement, Petito's family said Laundrie is "not missing, he is hiding."
In late August, Petito and Laundrie got into a domestic dispute while on the road in Utah, and police spoke with the couple and a witness who saw them fighting; no arrests were made. Authorities wrote in their search warrant application that Petito sent her mother text messages around that same time describing tension between her and Laundrie, and her "odd" final message was about her grandfather, referring to him by his first name.
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