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Outrage after Brian Laundrie Halloween costume ideas surface online: 'This is disturbing'

Images of people have surfaced online poking fun at Brian Laundrie through their Halloween costumes

Whether it is COVID-19 related costumes, or culturally insensitive ones, or downright offensive getups, every year, people’s sense of humor and Halloween result in a few incidents of outrage. This year, that point of outrage seems to be Brian Laundrie. 

Local and federal investigators have been searching for Laundrie, the fiancé of 22-year-old Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, for about a month now. Petito's cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Her body was found almost a month ago in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. 

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Petito’s disappearance and death have captured the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of people, with many trying to solve the case, some supporting Laundrie as a victim in the situation, and some, who seem to be attempting to find humor in this macabre story. Case in point, there are now Brian Laundrie Halloween costumes.

Images of people have surfaced online poking fun at Laundrie through their Halloween costumes. One such costume, which has been making the rounds on Reddit, features a man dressed as Laundrie in a flower garden getup -- this is likely a representation of the theory that Laundrie is hiding out in an underground bunker in his parent’s North Port, Florida backyard, something that has been suggested by online sleuths based on no actual evidence. Another reportedly shows the wearer in a laundry bin with the name tag: “My name is Brian.”

Recently, Laundrie's long-time friend told The Sun that the man on the run had plans of living outside the US since high school. "I think he'd be able to put the resources together to get out of the country, either illegally or under some sort of a fake identification,” the friend told The Sun. “He's the type of person that would be able to drop everything to secure his means of not being captured and to evade arrest or evade prosecution from what seems to be a pending crime."

They said that Laundrie’s favorite film director is Neill Blomkamp, who created ‘Chappie’, ‘Elysium’, and ‘District Nine’. “Blomkamp is from South Africa,” the friend said. “That's a country that Brian was talking about a lot because that was one of his favorite genres of movies. Two of those three movies took place in South Africa.”

They added that upon learning about Laundrie's disappearance, they reached out to some of the other friends in their group and were reminded that Laundrie also spoke highly of New Zealand. “One of his favorite movies was always Lord of the Rings, in which all the filming occurred in New Zealand and it is a very beautiful country,” the friend said. “So I'm sure if he had the time and the resources in a few years and he really needed to get away from this issue, that's probably somewhere he would end up."

While authorities continue their search for Laundrie at the Carlton Reserve, the FBI announced the US District Court of Wyoming issued a federal arrest warrant for him. Laundrie is suspected of using a debit card and PIN for accounts that do not belong to him for charges of more than $1,000 sometime between August 30 and September 1, according to the indictment.