Promising clues emerging in search for Brian Laundrie

The “bounty hunter” employed to track down Brian Laundrie has revealed search teams are “onto something” in the hunt for the person of interest.

Brian Laundrie was reported missing on September 17 – weeks after returning to Florida alone without his fiancee Gabby Petito.

Duane Lee Chapman, more commonly known as US reality TV star “Dog the Bounty Hunter” may be sniffing in the right place, a Florida search and rescue expert says.

Michael Hadsell, president of Peace River K9 Search and Rescue, was among the searchers who joined the hunt for Brian Laundrie in Fort De Soto Park on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the Laundrie family camped in early September after Brian returned from a cross-country road tip without his fiancee, Gabby Petito.

“I wasn’t a big believer in the Fort De Soto when it first started,” Mr Hadsell, who brought his K9 team to help in the search, told WSNN-TV News. “But after working out there, yesterday, I’m like, ‘Wow, we may be really into something.’

Ms Petito’s body was found in a Wyoming campground on September 19, five days after Mr Laundrie, who remains the sole person of interest in the case, vanished from his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, reported the New York Post.

The massive FBI-led manhunt for Mr Laundrie has focused mainly on a park closer to his home, where his parents say he went for a hike. The hunt for Mr Laundrie has so far been unsuccessful, but officials are also eyeing Fort De Soto.

Mr Hadsell told the station they found signs Brian Laundrie may be dodging authorities by kayaking around the Florida park, a 1136-acre oasis made up of five interconnected islands at the mouth of Tampa Bay.

“We did find some campsites, we did find some evidence of kayaks near the campsites so it is possible that Brian’s out there,” Mr Hadsell said.

Brian Laundrie was reported missing on September 17 – weeks after returning to Florida alone without his fiancee Gabby Petito.

Dog the Bounty Hunter is searching for Brian Laundrie in Fort De Soto Park.

The K9 team had to rely on its experience of nearly 200 search and rescue missions because the Laundrie family did not supply anything with Brian’s scent on it, Mr Hadsell said.

“The parents as you know are being uncooperative, so we don’t have any scent articles or anything from Brian to be able to use it as a target odour for our dogs to work on,” Hadsell said. “So, we do what we call, ‘general human scent.’

The dogs are trained to work on water from a boat, he explained.

“And we can circle these smaller islands, if there is any human odour being produced from the island, the dogs will alert, and then we’ll send teams to go check it out.”

The FBI’s search of the Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre, alligator-infested nature preserve near the Laundrie’s North Port home continues, though it has been scaled back.

Video Grab from the Moab City Police Department shows officer investigating an incident between Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie on the 8th of September.

Mr Laundrie’s family has insisted they don’t know where he is.

“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,” their lawyer, Steven Bertolino, said in a statement earlier in the week.

The length of time Mr Laundrie has been missing is complicating the search as are the conditions in the wild areas Mr Laundrie is believed to be hiding.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission