Campers are keen to help authorities search for Brian Laundrie — even though they fear for their own safety during a country-wide manhunt for him.
Authorities have been looking for Laundrie for weeks.
He is considered a person of interest in the disappearance of his Long Island fiancee, Gabby Petito, who was found murdered at a campsite in Wyoming.
Hannah Lane, who is on a cross-country trip in a tour bus with her husband Cody, said she will do what she can to help police, who have been searching a nature reserve in Florida where they believe Laundrie could be hiding.
“We need to focus on his specific identifiers and markers. Not just him being a bald guy with a beard,” Hannah Lane told UK’s The Sun newspaper. “He has a folded ear that’s triangular and a tattoo on his finger.”
But Lane is scared, too.
“I have talked so much openly about Brian Laundrie and the things that he has done that now I’m paranoid that he’s going to come to my bus,” she told the outlet. “It is just so scary because you never know who you are near. You could be parked next to someone and the next thing you know you are on the news.”
Cody said she believed that Laundrie is somewhere on the Appalachian Trail where he has lived “off the grid” for months in the past.
“He’s hiding, he thinks he’s gotten away with it and his lawyer thinks the longer he’s out there, the more the media will die down but there are millions of us ready to be Gabby’s voice and won’t allow that to happen,” Lane told the newspaper.
“I have talked so much openly about Brian Laundrie and the things that he has done that now I’m paranoid that he’s going to come to my bus,” she told the outlet. “It is just so scary because you never know who you are near. You could be parked next to someone and the next thing you know you are on the news.”
Cody said she believed that Laundrie is somewhere on the Appalachian Trail where he has lived “off the grid” for months in the past.
“He’s hiding, he thinks he’s gotten away with it and his lawyer thinks the longer he’s out there, the more the media will die down but there are millions of us ready to be Gabby’s voice and won’t allow that to happen,” Lane told the newspaper.
Another sleuth, mamabear_xo, said alongside their TikTok video that “Brian is under the garden bed. Watch him hand his mother something.”
After it emerged Thursday that Chris Laundrie had gone to the vast Florida reserve to help crews search for his son, TikTok user kmiller480 wrote the FBI should be checking their yard.
“Chris Laundrie agrees to assist in the search for his son, Brian. Meanwhile Roberta Laundrie is busy as ever in the garden. Has the FBI checked the garden?” they wrote alongside the video.
Some are also tagging Dog the Bounty Hunter in their videos urging him to go and search under the flower bed.
Many, however, were quick to dismiss the conspiracy theory, saying it was just a weed and pointing to how the FBI had already searched the Laundrie home.
“I can’t believe people actually think Brian Laundrie is in a bunker under their flower bed. Realistically, who would coincidentally have an underground bunker in their backyard already OR be able to build one by the time they realized Gabby was missing,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another tweeted: “Stop with this ridiculous story about Brian Laundrie hiding in a stupid flower bed in the parents backyard. It’s not remotely funny.”
Laundrie has been missing since Sept. 14, according to his parents, and has been the subject of a massive manhunt in Florida ever since.
He is being sought for questioning in Petito’s disappearance and death after her body was discovered in Wyoming on Sept. 19 — nearly three weeks after Laundrie returned to the couple’s Florida home without her following a road trip.
