In case you missed it, this week we finally got an answer to one of the biggest questions in the ongoing Gabby Petito case: how exactly did Brian Laundrie die?
The sole person of interest in his fiancée’s murder investigation was the focus of a four-week manhunt in the Florida swamps near his home in North Port. When he was finally found, it was too late to get any answers — he was already dead. In fact, that just raised more questions, partially because it took authorities a month to reveal his cause of death. The longer the wait, the more outlandish the myriad internet theories got.
After all that, the cause was rather simple — and exactly what many predicted from the start of the search. He had gone deep into the swamp, the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, and shot himself in the head. Still not sure why that took so long for medical examiners to figure out, if we’re being honest…
Related: Gabby’s Family Respond To Brian Laundrie Cause Of Death
Once again, each answer gives us more questions. Where is the gun now? Was it by the body? Because it wasn’t reported in all the talk of a dry bag and a wet notebook. And its presence by the body would have made the cause of death a lot easier to solve, frankly. And of course the other big question: where did he get the gun?
Obviously Brian was a 23-year-old in “proud-to-be-a-stand-your-ground-state” Florida, so it wouldn’t have been terribly difficult to get a firearm under normal circumstances, even with his alleged history of domestic violence. But when you’re a fugitive on the run in the most famous homicide case in the country? No, he must have had the gun when he left his parents’ house on his “hike” back on September 13. Or was it September 14? Like his parents, we get confused about that.
Innerestingly, Fox News has now learned something crucial which makes Chris and Roberta Laundrie look worse — and may frankly be unforgivable when it comes to law enforcement involved in the case.
When Brian’s parents finally revealed he was missing to police, his family was asked to turn over any firearms they owned to the FBI. It was multiple guns, apparently, because Florida, but here’s the thing: ONE WAS MISSING.
So did Brian’s parents give him a gun to take with him? If so, does that imply they knew he wasn’t just going for a hike??
Related: Laundrie Family Lawyer BLASTS Theory That Brian’s Parents Planted Evidence
Obviously it’s possible he may have just taken one, but that means it’s also possible his parents knew if he did.
And that’s not the worst of it. Law enforcement knew a gun was missing. They found out on September 17. Think about that for a second… For four weeks as the search for Brian Laundrie continued, they believed him to be armed and NEVER NOTIFIED THE PUBLIC. He was a person of interest in a murder case, the general public should have been told to consider him armed and dangerous. How could they have messed this up so badly?
The Laundries’ attorney, Steven Bertolino, explained why he never came forward with that information:
“We didn’t want the public going into a frenzy on that. I don’t think they considered him dangerous to anybody he met on the street.”
Um, that’s not his parents’ call to make, and frankly it’s not the cops’ or FBI’s either. This was a man on the run — for what many believe to be Gabby’s murder — and he had a gun. People who might have come across him had a right to know that.
As far as Bertolino’s worry that it would attract armed vigilantes to come after Brian, well, that sounds more like he was interested in protecting his client’s life than the safety of the public.
Florida residents were already up in arms, so to speak, about how the police handled this case. We have to imagine this latest tidbit just made that so much worse.
[Image via FOX13/YouTube.]
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