Malcolm Henry
We discussed on Wednesday that police may have found remains of Brian Laundrie — the man suspected of killing Gabby Petito — and now with time to digest that information, friends of Petito are hoping that it is not him.
We are with them, to be honest, with good reason.
Speaking to People shortly after a press conference, several gave the most human of all emotional answers.
Ben Matula wants resolutions and hopes that it is not him, “because that means he never has to answer for what happened to Gabby.”
He added that if these are his remains and a result of a suicide, “(Brian) didn’t want to face the music. He had a lot of things he had to account for, and he can’t do that if he’s dead. Except to God. (If he is) meeting his maker, I hope he got things right before he died. But death is the easy way out.”
He was not the only one with that sentiment.
“If Brian is dead, the problem is that no one will ever really know what happened or why it happened,” Petito’s friend, Alyssa Chen, added. “We’ll never have answers. That’s why I want him to be alive, because we won’t get answers otherwise. It’ll be a double tragedy for him to be dead.”
Michael McPherson of FBI Tampa said that the area in which the remains were discovered had previously been underwater. He added that the evidence response team is on the scene, and will likely remain there for several more days.
Laundrie and Petito were on a cross-country trip from New York to the West Coast when she went missing in late-August. According to the timeline and other reports, Laundrie arrived at his parents’ home in North Port, Florida without Petito on Sept. 1.
Her parents waited almost two weeks before reporting her missing on Sept. 11, and her body was then found in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19. Laundrie’s parents have maintained that they haven’t seen him since Sept. 14 and they reported him missing three days later. A federal court in Wyoming has since issued a federal arrest warrant after a grand jury indicted Laundrie on debit card fraud after he allegedly used a debit card that didn’t belong to him to withdraw $1,000 between Aug. 30 and Sept. 1.
Prior to the discovery of the remains on Wednesday, the Sarasota County medical examiner’s office as well as a cadaver dog were sent to the park after several items belonging to Laundrie were found. There has not been a conclusive report if the remains are a match for Laundrie.
