Florida police mistook Brian Laundrie’s mother for him, say it’s likely he killed himself before manhunt started

Details come from TMZ, which reported that Laundrie’s remains were down to bones and required the help of dental records to identify him. In the area where they found his backpack and notebook, Brian’s corpse was found underwater.

This aspect of the situation is cited by authorities when explaining why it took so long to find Gabby Petito’s former boyfriend.

The New York Post reports how the chief of the North Port Police Department early on admitted to making a mistake. Todd Garrison said his people made a mistake back on September 15th with a supposed sighting of Brian outside his parents’ home.

The authorities mistook Brian for his mother. A few days later, the FBI raided the Laundrie residence, hours after the remains of Gabby Petito were discovered.

"Now we know that, by the time we became the lead agency, Brian had already left the house and presumably had already been deceased out in the Carlton Reserve," Todd Garrison told a media conference.

In a timeline of events compiled by CNN, it was in June of this year that Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie embarked on a cross-country vlogging project. Fast forward to August and the two are seen stressed out in body camera footage taken by Utah police. Officials were called to respond to a "mental health crisis" domestic dispute.

By the beginning of September, Brian Laundrie went back home alone to his parents house in North Port, Florida. He had been seen as uncooperative and that led him to go "into hiding."

It was in late September that authorities discovered Petito’s remains in the Spread Creek Campsite at Bridger-Teton in Wyoming. An autopsy later revealed her cause of death was strangulation.

As for Brian Laundrie, the autopsy came back inconclusive and his bones were sent to an anthropologist for further analysis. Results from that are expected by the end of November.