The killing of Gabby Petito and disappearance of Brian Laundrie, the person of interest in the investigation, caused a Florida attorney to place a $20,000 bounty on his location.
“I think a missing child is every parent’s worst nightmare,” the lawyer, who is a mother of two children, Tatiana Boohoff, told Fox News during an interview Friday.
“Our hearts go out to her family and to the community, and we hope that together we can get some answers and get justice for Gabby,” she said.
Scrutiny fell on Laundrie, who was Petito’s fiancé when her mother reported her missing on September 11, before officials found her remains in a Wyoming park.
Teton County coroner Dr. Brent Blue noted the initial determination of Petito’s body was that her death was a homicide.
The Fox report continued:
Laundrie pulled into his parents’ driveway in her van on the morning of Sept. 1. Since then, he and his parents have refused to answer any questions from police or the media regarding Petito. Then his family said nothing about the missing young woman – who’d lived in their home for two years.
Ten days later, North Port, Fla., police found Petito’s van at the Laundrie family home, on the same day as the missing person report, and seized it as evidence. But on Friday, Sept. 17, police returned to the house only for Landrie’s parents to tell them they hadn’t seen their son since Tuesday, Sept. 14, and that they believed he was missing. Petito’s family attorney has maintained that he’s in hiding.
The timeline regarding the events concerned Boohoff, so she decided to offer $20,000 to “the first person to supply information leading directly to the exact whereabouts” of Brian Laundrie.
“We have an office in North Port, and our employees work and live there,” Boohoff explained. “We serve clients there – and we want to do what we can to help find answers and get justice.”
She said she already got several tips and forwarded them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). She also asked anyone with leads to take them directly to authorities.
Fox 13 reported Friday that six days into the search for Laundrie, police in North Port said the exhausting operation at the Carlton Reserve was worthwhile, and his indictment by the FBI regarding a federal fraud charge had not influenced officers’ efforts.
“The warrant doesn’t change anything for us,” North Port Police Department Commander Joe Fussell explained in a video from the agency. “We’re working as hard to find him now as we did on Day 1.”
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