Florida nature reserve's swampy landscape made the search for Brian Laundrie treacherous
Florida nature reserve's swampy landscape made the search for Brian Laundrie treacherous
For more than a month, investigators spread out across a sprawling, swampy Florida nature area known as the Carlton Reserve in search of Brian Laundrie, the missing man whose fiancée Gabby Petito was fatally strangled last month.
The investigators waded through near chest-high waters. They rode on swamp buggies and air boats and called in underwater dive teams to explore the reserve's 25,000 acres. And they tried to avoid the many poisonous snakes, gators, palmetto bugs and swarms of mosquitoes that call the swamp home.
On Wednesday, a team of searchers, including Laundrie's parents, finally found what they had been looking for: suspected human remains, as well as a backpack and notebook belonging to Laundrie, according to the FBI.
The identity of the remains is not yet clear, but Laundrie's family attorney Steven Bertolino said "the probability is strong that it is Brian's remains." A source close to the investigation told CNN that the suspected human remains "appear to have been there a while."
The suspected remains were found "about 2 to 3 miles inside the Carlton Reserve, or about a 45-minute walk" from the entrance at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, a connected nature area, North Port police spokesperson Josh Taylor said.
The discovery came at an area of the reserve that had been underwater, but recently dried out due to clearer weather, and had reopened to the public a day earlier. The search remains ongoing as teams of K-9 dogs and law enforcement continued to comb for any more evidence.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno visited the reserve Thursday and saw firsthand the "treacherous" conditions of the search.
"These are very, very difficult conditions," he said. "You're searching in areas that you just can't walk up and look. It's not like you're searching a house or a car. These areas are huge and they're covered by water."
The challenging landscape of the Carlton Reserve has hampered the search for Laundrie as investigators have tried to pin down what happened to him and Petito on their road trip through the Western US this summer.
Petito, 22, disappeared on the trip amid tensions in their relationship, and Laundrie, 23, returned by himself to his parents' home in Florida on September 1.
Her parents, unable to get in contact with her, reported her missing 10 days later. Laundrie, meanwhile, declined to speak with authorities and then himself went missing in the reserve, his parents told authorities. Petito's body was ultimately found in Wyoming near where the couple had last been seen, and the Teton County Coroner ruled her death a homicide by manual strangulation.
He has not been charged in her death, although he was indicted for allegedly using two financial accounts that did not belong to him in the days following her killing.
HOW THE CARLTON RESERVE IMPACTED THE SEARCH
The search for Laundrie began in earnest on September 17 after his parents told authorities he had gone to the Carlton Reserve with a backpack days earlier and did not return home.
Since then, investigators have repeatedly tried to navigate through the foreboding landscape of the reserve.
"The Carlton Reserve is a vast and unforgiving location at times. It is currently (waist) deep in water in many areas," North Port police said in a Facebook post last month. "This is dangerous work for the search crews as they are wading through gator and snake infested swamps and flooded hiking and biking trails."
The search team has included a range of specialized vehicles and personnel for such an environment.
"We're looking through wooded areas, we're looking through bodies of water, we're looking through swampy areas," North Point Police Commander Joe Fussell said last month. "And we're deploying the resources to be able to do that. We have air units, we have drones, we have the swamp buggies, air boats, multiple law enforcement agencies, we have ATVs, we have UTVs and we have officers on foot as well."
Alan McEwen, a cattle rancher and outdoorsman who lives near the reserve, told CNN last week the area feels like "muck," with parts of the reserve reaching knee- and waist-deep water levels -- making camping in that wilderness extremely difficult.
"The palmettos out there alone are enough to trip you up, when you're walking through them, when you stumble through them," McEwen told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "The mosquitoes will carry you off, anybody out there more than a day without mosquito spray, you'd go insane with the bugs getting you and everything else."
In an ABC interview earlier this month, Laundrie's sister, Cassie Laundrie, said he had previously taken trips for up to five days on the Appalachian Trail. She said her brother is a "mediocre survivalist."
Robert Urban, founder and chief instructor of the Urban Survival Academy, said he believes it's highly unlikely that someone who is not professionally trained in survival tactics would be able to survive in the reserve for this long.
"Florida's climate is very, very difficult," Urban told CNN. "I'm an expert with plenty of experience, and it would be everything that I could do to survive for (more) than three weeks. Someone with no experience, you cannot be lucky and survive in that sort of climate."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to assure Canadians that his government is adequately addressing the threat of foreign interference took a hit on Wednesday, when the majority of MPs in the House of Commons voted for special rapporteur David Johnston to 'step aside,' a call Johnston quickly rejected.
A New Democrat MP is trying to convince his colleagues to change the rules that govern the House of Commons in a series of ways he says would instill 'democratic controls' on the prime minister's 'unfettered' powers.
Monday morning, the Public Service Alliance of Canada announced it had reached a 'tentative' agreement with the federal government for the 120,000 picketing Treasury Board workers who, since April 19, had been engaged in one of the largest strikes in Canadian history. Here's a rundown of the developments from Parliament Hill as they happened.
The House committee studying foreign election interference heard from top 2019 and 2021 Liberal and Conservative campaign directors on Tuesday, with party officials from both camps speaking about the need for politicians to come together to address any "legislative gaps" ahead of the next vote.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
Danielle Smith's win in the Alberta election hands her the most starkly divided province confronting any premier in Canada, writes commentator Don Martin.
Special rapporteur David Johnston didn't recommend public inquiry knowing it was a pathetically insufficient response for a foreign democratic assault of this magnitude, writes Don Martin in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca.
To frame a few new illustrations on pages tucked inside a passport as proof of a Liberal plot to purge the Canadian historical record seems like a severe stretch, writes Don Martin in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino is a bright former federal prosecutor, who was destined to be a star in Justin Trudeau's cabinet. But in an opinion column on CTVNews.ca, Don Martin argues Mendicino has taken a stunning fall from grace, stumbling badly on important issues just 18 months into the job.
It's the most peculiar of elections with the frontrunner and her main opponent being the same person, writes columnist Don Martin. 'In the looming Alberta showdown, it's Premier Danielle Smith versus her mouth.'
Foreign interference special rapporteur David Johnston has resigned, CTV News has confirmed. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Johnston cited the intense politicization of his appointment and work, as the reason for his coming departure.
Fires across the country are burning millions of hectares of land but what does that really look like? CTVNews.ca compared the blazes to some cities and lakes in the country showing just how big they have gotten.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed Friday that alleges that he described a Pentagon 'plan of attack' and shared a classified map related to a military operation.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson shocked Britain on Friday by quitting as a lawmaker after being told he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament.
Despite the alarming facts and figures, experts say Canada is far more reactive than it is proactive when it comes to wildfires and they’re calling for a national campaign on wildfire education to better prepare for the future.
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Preventative Medicine Reports by a group of international researchers has found that post-secondary students with unhealthy eating habits can go on to suffer from disease and mental health issues for years to come.
Showers are predicted Saturday over the aggressive wildfire threatening Tumbler Ridge, but forecasters say thunderstorms could sweep through the parched region without bringing any rain.
Air Canada says it made a mistake in rejecting some compensation claims from the thousands of travellers affected by delayed flights due to computer malfunctions.
A new museum that features stories from more than 70 Holocaust survivors has opened in Toronto, with the aim of sharing their experiences and combating antisemitism.
Showers are predicted Saturday over the aggressive wildfire threatening Tumbler Ridge, but forecasters say thunderstorms could sweep through the parched region without bringing any rain.
Despite the alarming facts and figures, experts say Canada is far more reactive than it is proactive when it comes to wildfires and they’re calling for a national campaign on wildfire education to better prepare for the future.
The government of Nicaragua announced Friday it has confiscated properties belonging to 222 opposition figures who were forced into exile in February after being imprisoned by the regime of President Daniel Ortega.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will tour for the second straight summer, appearing in eight cities in Europe and Britain in support of the nation's war effort against Russia.
Attackers killed one UN peacekeeper and seriously injured eight others Friday in Mali's northern Timbuktu region, an area where extremists continue to operate, the United Nations said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that authorities found alive four children who survived a small plane crash 40 days ago and had been the subject of an intense search in the Amazon jungle that held Colombians on edge.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson shocked Britain on Friday by quitting as a lawmaker after being told he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed Friday that alleges that he described a Pentagon 'plan of attack' and shared a classified map related to a military operation.
Foreign interference special rapporteur David Johnston has resigned, CTV News has confirmed. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Johnston cited the intense politicization of his appointment and work, as the reason for his coming departure.
Canada requested use of the European Union's compound in Kabul to help with tasks such as fingerprinting for those fleeing Afghanistan, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press.
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Preventative Medicine Reports by a group of international researchers has found that post-secondary students with unhealthy eating habits can go on to suffer from disease and mental health issues for years to come.
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the appeal of an Alberta woman who was unwilling to be vaccinated in order to get a life-saving organ transplant.
Canadians who make content online are to be excluded from future regulations that the Liberal government is imposing on digital giants, a new draft policy shows.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Thursday gave employees a sneak peek at a series of AI tools it was building, including ChatGPT-like chatbots planned for Messenger and WhatsApp that could converse using different personas.
Scientists have documented the first-known instance of a 'virgin birth' by a crocodile, which had been living in isolation for 16 years at Costa Rican zoo, according to a study published Wednesday.
There were many stressful things about making "The Flash" and getting it to theaters. It was shot in the middle of a pandemic. There was isolation from friends and family for the 138-day shoot. There were A-list schedules to coordinate for cameos. There was a star in Ezra Miller who, after it wrapped, made headlines for legal run-ins amid a mental health crisis. And behind it all, a studio undergoing leadership changes and rethinking the whole DC Comics strategy.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra will tour for the second straight summer, appearing in eight cities in Europe and Britain in support of the nation's war effort against Russia.
The world's first lipstick. The first modern perfume. A pivoting toothbrush. The original Nivea cream and serum. Not to mention the intimate secrets of Queen Elizabeth II. These are some of the treasures held in Guerlain's first archive, which brings stories from the iconic French cosmetic company's sensational past to life.
U.S. lawmakers are considering rolling back an Obama-era rule that requires airlines to show the total price of a ticket upfront in advertising, while also tweaking training requirements for airline pilots and making other changes in a massive bill covering the Federal Aviation Administration.
Mexico's Labour Department issued new rules Friday requiring employers to pay for internet and provide ergonomic chairs for employees working from home.
A shopping app that didn’t exist four months ago is making quite the splash for online shoppers. But experts warn of potential data dangers for Canadian customers.
Rescuers in Washington state are praising the resourcefulness of a 10-year-old girl who survived on her own for more than 24 hours in the rugged terrain of the Cascade mountains after getting lost while out with her family.
A university professor who spent 100 days living underwater at a Florida Keys lodge for scuba divers resurfaced Friday and raised his face to the sun for the first time since March 1.
The April Facebook post hardly seemed like national news at the time for Deptford Little League president Don Bozzuffi. He'd lost patience when two umpires resigned in the wake of persistent spectator abuse. So he wrote an updated code of conduct.
Ford has planned a return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its iconic Mustang muscle car next year under a massive rebranding of Ford Performance aimed at bringing the automotive manufacturer "into the racing business."
A group of climate activists claimed responsibility on Wednesday for deflating the tires of sport utility vehicles in Denmark's capital. More than 100 vehicles were vandalized, police said.
