North Port Police Department
- The search fo Brian Laundrie inside a Florida nature preserve will be "scaled back" this week, police said.
- North Port Police Department spokesman Josh Taylor told Insider the FBI is now leading the search.
- Law enforcement agencies have been searching the vast Carlton Reserve for Gabby Petito's fiancé for more than a week.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
The search for Gabby Petito's fiancé Brian Laundrie inside a vast, alligator-and-snake-infested Florida nature preserve will be "scaled back" this week, local police said Monday.
Several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been searching the 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve in Sarasota County by air and ground for more than a week.
"I don't think you're going to see those large scale types of efforts this week," Florida's North Port Police Department spokesman Josh Taylor told Insider Monday, adding that the FBI "is now leading the search" for Laundrie.
"I'm told it will be scaled back and targeted based on intelligence," Taylor said, explaining, "Hopefully, water will lower in areas hard to currently access" inside of the swampy nature preserve.
North Port Police Department
Laundrie, 23, has been the subject of a massive manhunt since his parents reported him missing to police on September 17 – just two days after he was named a person of interest in the then-disappearance of 22-year-old Petito.
His parents told police that Laundrie went out for a hike at the Carlton Reserve with only a backpack three days earlier and never returned to their North Port, Florida home.
Laundrie left the home, where he also lived with Petito, without a cell phone or wallet and has "no known means of communication," the family's attorney, Steven Bertolino, previously told Insider.
Bertolino said the family was worried that Laundrie may have hurt himself.
Petito's body was found at a remote campsite in Wyoming on September 19 and her death was later ruled a homicide, according to a coroner's initial findings.
Last week, a federal court in Wyoming issued an arrest warrant for Laundrie in connection to the case.