Brian Laundrie’s sister says she does not know where he is, and ‘I’d turn him in’
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Gregory Lemos and Jason Hanna, CNN
(CNN) — The sister of Brian Laundrie has doubled down on her assertion she has no idea where he is, as authorities search for him after the death of his fiancée Gabby Petito.
“No, I do not know where Brian is. … I’d turn him in,” Cassie Laundrie said in an exclusive interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” which aired Tuesday.
Cassie Laundrie said if she could talk to her brother, she would tell him to come forward.
“I worry about him. I hope he’s OK, and then I am angry and don’t know what to think. … I would tell my brother to just come forward and get us out of this horrible mess,” she said.
Petito was found dead September 19 in a national forest in Wyoming, 18 days after authorities say Brian Laundrie returned to his parents’ Florida home without her following a cross-country trip the pair took this summer.
After Petito’s family reported her missing September 11, Laundrie left the Florida home September 14 and hasn’t been seen since, his parents told authorities.
Though authorities have not explicitly connected Laundrie to Petito’s death, they are looking for him, in part over a federal arrest warrant accusing him of illegally using another person’s debit card.
A coroner made an initial ruling last month that Petito’s death was a homicide.
Sister says she last saw her brother September 6 on camping trip
Cassie Laundrie said the last time she saw her brother was during a family camping trip at Florida’s Fort De Soto Park in early September — days before Petito’s family reported her missing. The trip happened September 6-8, and the site is about 75 miles from where the Laundries’ parents live, county officials have said.
Cassie Laundrie told ABC she last saw and spoke to him September 6.
“We just went for a couple of hours and we ate dinner and had s’mores around the campfire and left. There was nothing peculiar about it. There was no feeling of grand goodbye. There was no nothing,” Cassie said of her last encounter with her brother, later adding she was “frustrated” she didn’t pick up on anything.
“It was just a regular visit,” she said.
Laundrie’s sister says she didn’t see signs of domestic violence between him and Petito
Petito, 22, and Laundrie, 23, spent their summer traveling in a white van through the American West while she posted about their adventures across social media.
The posts abruptly stopped in late August, and Laundrie returned to his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, with the van but without his fiancée September 1, according to police.
One of Petito’s last reported sightings alive was on August 27, when she and Laundrie were seen leaving a restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming.
Before that, on August 12, a witness called police to say the pair were in an altercation in Utah. A caller told a 911 dispatcher “the gentleman was slapping the girl” and he “hit her” before the pair drove off.
Police in Moab, Utah, pulled the pair over. Several body camera videos from officers who responded show exchanges between police and Petito, including Petito telling officers while Laundrie had hit her, she hit him first.
In the interview aired Tuesday, Cassie Laundrie told ABC she never saw any signs of domestic violence between her brother and Petito.
She said the body camera videos of officers’ encounter with the pair were painful to watch.
“It’s definitely painful to see everybody just be upset,” Cassie Laundrie said. “It was pretty typical of them to argue and try and take space from each other, but people saying they saw public domestic violence, I’ve never seen anything like that from either of them.”
No charges were filed in the August 12 incident, and at officers’ suggestion, the couple separated for the night, with Laundrie staying at a hotel and Petito taking the van.