Police monitoring Brian Laundrie last month thought he had come home. It was his mom.

Police in North Port, Florida, have admitted that they made a mistake whereas monitoring Brian Laundrie’s actions from his dwelling final month.

Investigators skilled cameras on the Laundrie residence after his fiancée, Gabby Petito, was reported lacking by her household in New York on Sept. 11. Laundrie had returned to Florida with out her from their cross-country highway journey Sept. 1, police stated.

These monitoring the house, the place Laundrie lived along with his mother and father, noticed him go away in his Mustang on Sept. 13 and thought they noticed him return Sept. 15, based on WINK Information’ report back to Telemundo in South Florida, which police confirmed. Telemundo and NBC Information are each owned by NBCUniversal.

“All I’m going to say is we all know the place Brian Laundrie is at,” North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison stated Sept. 16.

On Monday, police acknowledged they had been mistaken. The one who got here again within the Mustang wasn’t Laundrie, North Port police spokesperson Josh Taylor advised the information station. It was Laundrie’s mom, Roberta, who was sporting a baseball cap, based on the official.

“They’re sort of constructed equally,” he stated.

Officers realized the mix-up when the household reported Sept. 17 that Laundrie was lacking, based on police.

“That was actually information to us that they’d not seen him,” Taylor stated. “We thought that we seen Brian initially come again into that dwelling on that Wednesday. However we now know that that wasn’t true.”

He added: “The world was troublesome to regulate with the rising exercise. He was nonetheless not needed for against the law on the time.”

As authorities appeared for Laundrie, 23, focusing largely on the huge Carlton Reserve, a nationwide search was additionally ongoing for Petito, 22.

Her physique was discovered Sept. 19 on the Unfold Creek Dispersed Tenting Space within the Bridger-Teton Nationwide Forest in Wyoming. Petito had been useless for a minimum of three weeks, and her loss of life was dominated a murder by “guide strangulation,” the coroner stated.

Laundrie was by no means charged in Petito’s loss of life, however he was named an individual of curiosity in her disappearance. Authorities additionally issued an arrest warrant for him after they stated he had used Petito’s debit card with out permission.

Human stays present in Florida’s Carlton Reserve final Wednesday had been confirmed to be Laundrie’s after a evaluate of dental information, officers stated Thursday. His mother and father helped lead the FBI and North Port police to the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, part of Carlton Reserve.

In response to the FBI, the stays had been discovered alongside private gadgets belonging to Laundrie, comparable to a backpack and a pocket book. The contents of these gadgets haven’t been disclosed.

The stays have been despatched to an anthropologist “for additional analysis” after post-mortem outcomes got here again inconclusive, the household’s lawyer, Steven Bertolino, stated late final week.

“No method or reason behind loss of life was decided,” he stated in an announcement to NBC Information.

Bertolino on Monday stated he was not given a timeline for when the anthropologist will conclude the analysis of Laundrie’s stays, which he stated will in the end be cremated.

He added that Laundrie’s household has no fast plans for a funeral, though it could resolve on a non-public ceremony later.

“The household is grieving privately someplace in Florida,” he stated.

Petito and Laundrie left for his or her journey from Blue Level, New York, in early July in a 2012 Ford Transit van. The couple chronicled their journey on their Instagram accounts and YouTube underneath the moniker Nomadic Statik. Petito stopped speaking together with her household in late August.

The case continues to generate monumental public curiosity, however it has additionally raised questions in regards to the unequal media and legislation enforcement consideration given to lacking white ladies in comparison with lacking folks of shade.