Brian Laundrie update: Petito’s parents speak out in new interview as fugitive’s father rips sign from lawn

In a new interview with 60 Minutes Australia, Gabby Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, described the agony of not hearing from her daughter and beginning to worry something had happened to her.

About four days into Ms Petito’s van trip with her fiance, Brian Laundrie, Ms Schmidt says her daughter stopped answering her phone.

“Probably day 4 and 5, I was texting her every day, but I wasn’t getting any responses,” Ms Schmidt recalled. “By day 6 or 7, I was checking her social media. I didn’t see any activity.”

On day 10, she called the police to report Ms Petito as missing. By that time, it turns out, Mr Laundrie had been home for almost two weeks.

In a heartbreaking new interview, Gabby Petito’s mother and stepfather recalled Brian Laundrie as “quiet” and “polite,” and took a painful look back at the couple’s ill-fated van trip.

“I felt safe because she was with Brian, and I felt like she would be OK,” Ms Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, told 60 Minutes Australia. “I thought he would take care of her.”

A protester outside the Laundrie family’s home said through tears that she believed Ms Petito was a victim of domestic violence, and felt she could relate to her experience.

“I feel like I needed to be here for Gabby, basically because I know what she went through,” the woman, who said she’d traveled all the way from Minnesota, told YouTuber Joseph Morris. “This girl was completely helpless. She was stuck… And it hurts my heart, because I know how she was feeling. And I couldn’t just not do anything.”

Protesters are continuing to picket and shout outside the home of Brian Laundrie’s parents in North Port, Florida.

“You just devalued this block!” yelled one woman who had traveled all the way from Hershey, Pennsylvania, according to Fox News. “I’m telling you, this is gonna keep on going!”

Brian Laundrie’s father, Chris Laundrie, stormed out of his house on Saturday to tear down a protest sign on his lawn, Fox News footage shows.

The sign had read, “What if it was Cassie?” – apparently referring to Cassie Laundrie, Chris’ daughter.

Protesters have been gathering outside the Laundrie home for weeks, waving protest signs and shouting at the family.

Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer says she believes Brian Laundrie is still alive, judging by comments from the Laundrie family’s lawyer.

“The attorney has repeatedly said he is representing the family and he is representing Brian Laundrie,” Ms Coffindaffer told NewsNationNow. “You would not represent someone who is not alive.”

As the search for Brian Laundrie enters its second month, New Yorker writer Charles Bethea explored the ways that amateur sleuths have been looking for the fugitive along the Appalachian Trail – and mistaking other “archetypal, long-distance” hikers for him.

One couple, Severin Beckwith and Anna Brettmann, who were hiking from Georgia to Virginia along the trail in late September, had an unexpected encounter with a number of US Marshals who came bursting into their hotel room while they were taking a nap.

It turns out that Mr Beckwith, like many bearded, skinny and pale hikers, resembled Mr Laundrie, and someone at the hotel had tipped off the marshals.

“The preponderance of such men,” Mr Bethea writes, “perhaps, has made the Appalachian Trail a locus of the manhunt among the amateur set.”

Dog the Bounty Hunter has denied claims that he had pitched a show to A&E network that would follow the search for Brian Laundrie.

He told The Sun: “Anything about us ever going to A&E, that is a lie”. And added: “Will this search cause us to get a show? I doubt it.”

However, the 68-year-old told the newspaper that he would “absolutely” consider using some of the footage that he had captured in his search for Mr Laundrie in a show at a later date, but insisted that he was not currently producing a show.

With Halloween around the corner, a handful of internet trolls have taken it upon themselves to create DIY Brian Laundrie costumes.

One image shared online showed a man wearing a laundry basket around his waist, filled with laundry and tide detergent, The US Sun reported. “My name is Brian” was digitally added to the photo.

Another photo featured a man wearing a green morph suit with a flower mask on top. The image of a flowerbed was added to the photo, referencing an online theory that Mr Laundrie is hiding in a secret bunker below a flower bed in his parents’ backyard. This photo had been titled ‘Brian Laundrie’s Halloween Costume this year”.

Police have reported that a 17-year-old girl has been missing in Greenbelt, Maryland since 9pm on Friday night.

Evelyn Velasquez was last seen wearing blue jeans, a black and grey sweater, and pink Nikes when she left her home along the Greenbelt Station Parkway on Friday.

Authorities have noted that Evelyn is on the autism spectrum, and added that she is a “critical missing juvenile”.

In 2020, more than 260,000 women went missing across the US; the majority of them were under the age of 21, and none received anything close to the media coverage that the Gabby Petito case has garnered.