Brian Laundrie likely to be found in ‘comfort zone’, former FBI agent predicts

“People don’t change because they become a fugitive,” said Mr Turchie

A Former FBI agent has said he believes Brian Laundrie is likely to be somewhere where he’s “being taken care of”, based on the typical behaviour of people on the run.

Terry Turchie told Fox News that fugitives “tend to try to figure out how they can land in the comfort zone”, and are often found in places that are in some way familiar to them.

Mr Laundrie is a person of interest in the homicide of his fiancée, Gabby Petito and is wanted by the FBI on debit card fraud charges. His family says they last saw him on 13 September, when he went for a hike in Florida’s Carlton Reserve and did not return. A major manhunt for him has so far been unsuccessful despite weeks of searching.

“People don’t change because they become a fugitive,” said Mr Turchie, who spent a year leading the search for Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph in the 1990s.

“Clearly [Mr Laundrie] is not out in some camp or some cave somewhere on the hard, cold ground or … snake, gator-infested water. He’s somewhere where he’s probably being taken care of,” Mr Turchie continued. “When you see how he came running home after something obviously happened, that kind of tells you what he’s probably doing now.”

Mr Turchie said clues as to Mr Laundrie’s whereabouts may be found by talking to people who knew him well.

“You interview as many people who need this person as you can, you continue following that. You talk to neighbours, friends and you look for anything [the fugitive] might have said during a time that he didn’t have this guard up where he hadn’t done anything,” he said.

Although driving to far-off places is “exactly the kind of thing that that may very well be what he’s doing”, Mr Turchie said, he added that Mr Laundrie would need money to carry on doing so.

Those on the run all “tire eventually” said Mr Turchie, and a small mistake such as a traffic infraction would make “his fugitive run pretty short”.