Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Brian Laundrie, the fiance of Gabby Petito, has been missing for almost a week.
His disappearance comes after he and Petito embarked on a cross-country trip in June, only for him to return alone in September. The search for Petito has made national headlines with daily developments, and Laundrie's disappearance has only added to the confusion.
Laundrie has not been charged and is not suspected of a crime at this point, authorities said. He had refused to speak with police, leaving authorities stumped and powerless in their investigation.
Here's why the search for Laundrie has been so difficult for authorities:
Laundrie's family told police Friday night they have not seen the 23-year-old since Tuesday. His family told police he left home with his backpack and told them he was going to the Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre nature reserve near Venice, Florida.
Police in North Port, Florida, tweeted Saturday that authorities were searching the reserve, an effort that included the use of drones and bloodhounds who had used articles of Laundrie's clothing taken from his home to get his scent, said police spokesperson Josh Taylor.
In a place like a nature reserve, foliage and the lack of sunlight affects visibility, according to Chris Boyer, executive director of the non-profit National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR). The night can also hamper efforts, especially if the person being sought has no source of light or fire.
But when it comes to people eluding authorities, the search becomes much more difficult. An evasive person is more than likely wearing clothing that helps them blend in with their surroundings, Boyer said. In order to avoid being seen by helicopters or drones, an individual may also crawl in creek beds and avoid leaving tracks -- such as footprints, trash or evidence of a fire.
Boyer said technology like night vision goggles, drones and thermal sensors could help in pinning down a person's location.
Before he disappeared, Laundrie had been home in North Port for about two weeks.
He and Petito had been touring Western states together in her van for months until he returned to North Port on September 1 without her.
The family told police the last time they saw him was September 14.
Cheryl Dorsey, a retired Los Angeles police sergeant, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday she was curious why Laundrie's parents did not alert authorities about his leaving Tuesday.
"I get that he's a grown man," Dorsey said, adding that he's still just in his early 20s. "What influence, if any, do (his parents) have over him? He decides to go backpacking and they couldn't stop him?"
North Port police said Monday they shifted the focus of their search for Laundrie and are no longer looking for him in the nature reserve.
"At this time, we currently believe we have exhausted all avenues in searching of the grounds there," Taylor said.
Boyer, the NASAR director, said trying to find a person in the wilderness can be very difficult.
"It's really hard to find people even when they want to be found," he told CNN on Monday.
What makes finding Laundrie difficult, though, is the distance he could have already traveled before authorities started looking for him.
"The search area starts to grow every hour he could be in a car or be on foot," Boyer said. "It gets pretty daunting, to be honest."
Laundrie has not cooperated with police in their search for Petito, and because he has not been charged with a crime or been named a suspect, police are unable to do any more than file a search warrant.
The FBI executed a search warrant Monday on Laundrie's parents' home, where he lived with Petito.
The FBI removed Christopher and Roberta Laundrie from the home, executed the search warrant, and then brought them back inside for questioning, Taylor said. The search of the home concluded Monday evening, the FBI tweeted.
Police visited the home last week but the family refused to talk and instead gave authorities their attorney's information, Taylor said.
On Saturday, Taylor reiterated police were limited in what they could do because "we don't have a crime."
"Laundrie is not a suspect in a crime. We think he is likely one of the last people to see Gabby Petito alive, and for that reason he's a very important witness," said Andrew McCabe, CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former deputy director of the FBI.
Before he vanished, Laundrie was silent about Petito's disappearance. North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison told CNN's Don Lemon last week that Laundrie had invoked his Fifth Amendment right, which generally means a person cannot be forced to make statements they feel might be negative or used against them.
Steve Moore, retired FBI supervisory special agent, told CNN on Monday that in order to obtain a search warrant, authorities would need to have probable cause there had been a crime and the person at the home was involved in the crime.
"What I believe people in law enforcement are doing right now are making sure they have all the t's crossed and i's dotted because I think they believe -- and I believe -- they know who did this and they want to make sure their case is perfect at this point," Moore said.
McCabe told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Monday police had gotten to the point where "the search warrant absolutely has to be executed."
"Primarily, I think what the investigators will be looking for are anything that he may have written, any recordings of his thoughts, if he wrote any notes, if he kept a journal," or any electronic activity and history he may have, McCabe said.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.