Dog the Bounty Hunter says 'suicide is a very likely possibility' for Brian Laundrie
Dog the Bounty Hunter has chimed in on the shocking case of Gabby Petito's disappearance and murder, offering his take on how he would track down her missing fiance Brian Laundrie.
The reality TV star, 68, who specializes in tracking and arresting bail agreement violators for his long-running TV show, shared his thoughts on a case that has the nation glued to their screens. Petito's body was found in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park over the weekend, and her death has been ruled a homicide. Authorities have continued their search for Laundrie, who has been missing for a week. Petito, 22, and Laundrie, 23, had been traveling across America in a converted Ford Transit van for nearly two months. The fiance returned to his parents' Florida home by himself on September 1. Petito was reported missing on September 11, more than a fortnight after her mother last spoke to her on phone. Meanwhile, Laundrie refused to cooperate with detectives working the case and mysteriously disappeared on September 12. While Laundrie is still not a suspect in the case, he was named a "person of interest" last Wednesday, September 15.
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Dog, whose real name is Duane Chapman, spoke to Newsweek about the harrowing case. "We need to run his record," he said of Laundrie. "We need to see what his background is, as far as domestic violence or anything else".
"A lot of circumstances point towards him being the defendant," Chapman told the publication. "To look at the case, so far, I haven't got any inside info yet. But it seemed like she was very verbal when they got into arguments because there were people that heard her screaming at him," he added, citing the police officers that pulled the couple over.
In order to find Laundrie, Chapman insisted he would need to learn more about his background. "He went straight home to tell his parents what happened. And then he took off. So we got to look at his background, look at his record, his friends, his family. He's not an experienced runner or criminal. Suicide is a very likely possibility —and it seems like he's kind of an outdoors kid," he said.
Chapman said that often the people he would be looking for would end up not far away but close to home. "A lot of times they say he's out of state when he's right there in his hometown, you know," he said. "You got to start with his friends, family members, find out where are they gone? When's the last time they saw him? What kind of vehicle is he in? There's all kinds of ways to track that vehicle. I mean, now the investigation is really kicked into high gear."
Authorities continue to search for Laundrie in Florida as they investigate a possible sighting of him captured on a deer camera. The 23-year-old has been missing since he left his parents' home on September 12, when he told them he was going for a hike in the nearby Carlton Reserve. "He seems like an outdoors kid, you know, a camper," Chapman said of Laundrie. "What's his connection to the reserve? There's got to be a family member there. You know, why did he all of a sudden just go there?"
Before he went missing, Laundrie notably refused to speak with investigators about Petito's disappearance.