Brian Laundrie's Neighbors Claim They Saw Him & His Parents Leave For Weekend Trip In New Camper When Gabby Petito Was Reported Missing
Sept. 23 2021, Published 11:33 a.m. ET
The people who live across the street from Christopher and Roberta Laundrie claim they saw the couple and their embattled son, "person of interest" Brian Laundrie, pack up a pickup truck and attached camper and leave for what they assumed was a weekend trip – right around the time Gabby Petito was reported missing.
As Breaking Celebrity News has previously reported, 23-year-old Brian returned home to North Port, Florida, alone on Sept. 1 after cutting short his cross-country road trip with his fiancée, who lived with him and his parents prior to embarking on their trek. He had her white van.
The 22-year-old vlogger's parents, who live in New York, reported her missing on Sept. 11, which is around when Charlene and William Guthrie say they saw the three Laundries take off for a supposed getaway.
"We didn't know it was Gabby's, we just assumed it was [Brian's] van," Charlene told Fox News when asked about her thoughts on seeing the 2012 Ford Transit parked in the Laundries' driveway. "We just thought they had come back from wherever. We didn't know [Brian and Gabby] were on a trip. We just assumed they went back to their house or wherever they had gotten a house or wherever they were. We didn't know much about them at all. Nothing at all, actually."
"They just came back home," she added. "We thought [Gabby] was in the house with the parents or mother."
William said he saw Christopher working on a new camper after the FBI had come to take the van away.
"I was doing some work in the front yard, and I noticed that they got a new camper for the back of the pickup," he explained. "I didn't think anything unusual – they got a new camper, so they wanted to put their own touch inside of it. I saw them doing some work, and then when they prepared for their trip, I saw them loading the camper."
William added that he saw the family attach the camper to Christopher's pickup truck.
"I assumed they were preparing for a camping trip with their new camper," he reiterated, as his wife added, "They were gone for the weekend."
Both Charlene and William estimated that there was about "a week, week-and-a-half" between the day they saw Brian return in the van and the day he and his parents took off in the truck with the camper.