North Port Police Admit They Lost Track Of Brian Laundrie After They Confused Him For His Mother Roberta On Sept. 15
Oct. 26 2021, Published 3:30 p.m. ET
The North Port Police Department made a big mistake.
NPPD Chief Todd Garrison said on Sept. 16 that he and his officers knew where Brian Laundrie was, but they were mistaking the fugitive for his mother, Roberta Laundrie.
On Monday, NPPD spokesperson Josh Taylor admitted that the investigators who were tasked with watching the Laundries' house from the surveillance system they had set up saw 23-year-old Brian leave the Florida home and drive off in his gray Mustang on Monday, Sept. 13.
They thought they saw him return in the same car on Wednesday, Sept. 15, but according to Taylor, that person was "his mom who was wearing a baseball cap."
"They're kind of built similarly," he told Wink News.
Garrison was confident that Brian was inside his home when he spoke to reporters on that Thursday. That all changed the following day on Sept. 17.
"When the family reported him [missing] on Friday," Taylor explained, "that was certainly news to us that they had not seen him. We thought that we seen Brian initially come back into that home on that Wednesday. But we now know that that wasn't true."
Brian's parents, Chris and Roberta, initially told investigators they had not seen their son since Tuesday after he left for a solo hike at the nearby Carlton Reserve. Later, the family changed that date to Monday.
They drove Brian's car back from the nature preserve to their home on Wednesday.
"They had returned from the park with that Mustang. So who does that? Right? Like, if you think your son's missing since Tuesday, you're going to bring his car back to the home," Taylor said. "So it didn't make sense that anyone would do that if he wasn't there. So the individual getting out with a baseball cap we thought was Brian."
He added, "No case is perfect."