After more than a week of searching for Brian Laundrie in Florida's Carlton Reserve without much success, law enforcement plans to scale back their efforts in the coming days, according to police.
"I don’t think you’re going to see those large scale types of efforts this week," Josh Taylor, a spokesman for the North Port Police Department, told Fox News on Sunday night. "The FBI is now leading the search. I’m told, It will be scaled back and targeted based on intelligence. Hopefully, water will lower in areas hard to currently access."
The Carlton Reserve, an unforgiving 24,000-acre expanse of woods and swamps about 15 miles from the Laundries' home, has been the focus of the search since Laundrie was reported missing on Sept. 17.
Florida cattle rancher Alan McEwen said Sunday that "there’s no surviving" in the reserve, which is home to alligators, panthers, black bears, wild boar, and poisonous snakes.
"I have learned a lot in my life, and one thing I know is no one is gonna survive out there for two weeks on foot," he told Fox News.
More than 1,000 mourners gathered at a funeral home near Gabby Petito's hometown of Blue Point, New York on Sunday at a memorial service for the slain 22-year-old. Click here to see more pictures of the service on Fox News.
Click here to see more pictures of the service on Fox News.
{{#rendered}}A memorial service for Gabby Petito on Long Island near her hometown of Blue Point took place Sunday as more than 1,000 mourners gathered to remember the 22-year-old, whose remains were found in Wyoming one week ago.
Joseph Petito, her father, called his daughter "the most amazing person I've ever met."
"I want you to take a look at these pictures, and I want you to be inspired by Gabby," Petito said at the service. "If there’s a trip you guys want to take, take it now. Do it now while you have the time. If there is a relationship you’re in that might not be the best thing for you, leave it now."
Lines of mourners gathered outside the Moloney's Holbrook Funeral Home, which put a slideshow of hundreds of pictures online for people to remember her by.
“Gabby loved life and lived her life every single day," Petito's stepfather, Jim Schmidt, said on Sunday. "She is an example for all of us to live by. To enjoy every moment in this beautiful world, as she did. To love and give love to all like she did.”
Florida's Carlton Reserve, where police have been searching for Brian Laundrie for more than a week, is an inhospitable swamp-like area that is not conducive to human life, according to a cattle rancher who gave Fox News digital a tour on Sunday.
"I’ve been in the woods in and out all my life," Alan McEwen, who has spent more than 30 years in the area, told Fox News. "I have learned a lot in my life, and one thing I know is no one is gonna survive out there for two weeks on foot."
Click here to read the full story on Fox News.
Gabby Petito's parents will hold a press conference this week, the first time that they have all spoken publicly together since their daughter's remains were found in Wyoming a week ago.
Her mother, stepfather, father, and stepmother will gather on Tuesday for the event.
It comes after a memorial service was held for Petito on Long Island Sunday and while a manhunt for Brian Laundrie continues.
{{#rendered}}Utah officers who responded to a domestic altercation between Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie last month were told by a dispatcher that the reporting party saw "a male hit a female," but appeared to zero in on Petito as the aggressor when they pulled the couple over, dispatch radio recordings show.
"RP (reporting party) states seeing a male hit a female, domestic," the dispatcher states at around 4:38 p.m. MT on Aug. 12. "He got into a white Ford Transit van, has a black ladder on the back, Florida plate."
Moab city officials announced earlier this week that the officers' handling of the report will be investigated.
"I think they will find that they sort of manipulated the situation to not take someone into custody," Brett Tolman, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, told Fox News on Sunday. "I think the fact that they had another eyewitness that is not involved in it, and is objective, and said ‘he hit her’ … you're going to have a majority of officers take him into custody."
Click here to read the full story on Fox News.
Two FBI agents briefly visited Brian Laundrie's family's home in North Port, Fla. on Sunday morning to ask for help with "DNA matching."
"The FBI requested some personal items belonging to Brian Laundrie to assist them with DNA matching and Brian’s parents provided the FBI with what they could," the Laundries' lawyer, Steven Bertolino, told Fox News on Sunday.
The agents walked into the front porch around 11:00 a.m. and left with a brown paper bag.
Sunday's visit comes almost a week after roughly 20 FBI agents swarmed the Laundrie home and could be seen carrying boxes and suitcases into unmarked vehicles.
Click here to read the full story on Fox News.
Gabby Petito’s story has touched many people across the nation – so much so that they felt the need to pay their respects in person, despite having never met or known her personally.
Alene Natale drove two and a half hours from Trenton, New Jersey and stood in line at 11 a.m. to speak with Petito’s father and mother.
“They were really happy that I came,” Natale told Fox News. “She hugged me. Her dad was awesome.”
Natale related how she and her sister had been in abusive relationships, and she felt that Petito’s story could have been her story.
“It felt like me, in a way,” Natale said. “I just had to be here, myself.”
{{#rendered}}“I’ve been in denial about it from the start,” Corissa Ambrose told Fox News. Ambrose said Petito dated her cousin for about a year between 2013 and 2014.
“Since she first went missing, I did not want to believe that anything bad could have happened to her, and I’m still kind of in denial. It’s hard to take in.”
Ambrose described Petito as the most “free-spirited, kind-hearted soul” who saw the best in everybody.
“You could do no wrong for her,” Ambrose said. “No person deserves this, but her – she didn’t deserve this.”
{{#rendered}}{{#rendered}}The Petito family will be using an empty urn during the funeral service today in Blue Point, New York.
The FBI has not released Gabby Petito's body to her family, nor have they provided a timeline as to when they might do so.
Petito's cause of death has not yet been revealed, and the final autopsy report remains to be completed.
{{#rendered}}Dog the Bounty Hunter arrived at Brian Laundrie’s parents’ home Saturday, knocked on the door and met silence, but he’s already picked up a scent.
"The reason I went to Mr. [Christopher] Laundrie is I carry a reputation with me," he told Fox News Digital moments later. "The reputation is, ‘He gives you a second chance. He’s gonna get you, but he gives you a second chance.’"
The reality TV star and legendary bounty hunter, whose real name is Duane Chapman, is a father of 13 who lost a daughter around the same age as Gabby Petito in a car accident in 2006. He was already in Florida on a honeymoon with his wife Francie Chapman, he said, when people began reaching out to him to look into Laundrie’s disappearance.
Click here to read more on Fox News.
The family of Gabby Petito has established the Gabby Petito Foundation that will "give resources and guidance" to help others bring "their children home. We are looking to help people in similar situations as Gabby," her father wrote on Twitter Saturday evening.
"No one should have to find their child on their own," he added.
{{#rendered}}Funeral services for Gabby Petito will be held in Holbrook, Long Island on Sunday.
The services will be at the Moloney Funeral Home and it is open to the public from 12 to 5 p.m.
"Thank to all for your support and love," Gabby's father wrote on Instagram, adding that in lieu of flowers the family requests people make donations to the future Gabby Petito Foundation.
A group of mourners held a candlelight vigil in North Port, Florida, Brian Laundrie's hometown, dedicated to the memory of Gabby Petito on Saturday night.
The attendees released butterflies in her honor. "The Candlelight vigil for #GabbyPetito in Florida was beautiful tonight," attendee Brandon Krum wrote on Twitter. "A little butterfly even landed on a #JusticeForGabby flyer."
The vigil was held a day after Gabby's hometown of Blue Point, Long Island, lit candles for her.
Coverage for this event has ended.