KEY POINTS

  • Crews continued the search for Laundrie at Carlton Reserve on Saturday night
  • An experienced rancher said it was impossible to survive inside the reserve 
  • Gabby Petito's parents conducted a funeral for their daughter Sunday 

FBI agents visited Brian Laundrie's family home in North Port, Florida, on Sunday to collect his personal items as part of their investigation into the death of YouTuber Gabby Petito. The family's attorney said the agents were looking for items that could aid in "DNA matching."

"The FBI requested some personal items belonging to Brian Laundrie to assist them with DNA matching and Brian's parents provided the FBI with what they could," Steven Bertolino, the family's lawyer, told Fox News.

This comes as a search for Laundrie, who is a "person of interest" in the death of Petitio, continues for the second week.

Two agents were reportedly seen walking inside the screened-in front porch of the home carrying a clipboard Sunday. They were later seen leaving the home around 11:00 a.m. holding a brown paper bag. The FBI had searched the home last week too and seized a vehicle and other items from the property.

Laundrie was reported missing on Sept 17 by his parents, who claimed they haven't seen him since Sept 14. He reportedly told them he was going to the Carlton Reserve.

The North Port Police told WINK News on Sunday that crews were conducting searches in the 25,000-acre Florida reserve at night. The FBI is the lead agency in the investigation and the North Port Police Department is assisting them.

However, Alan McEwen, an experienced rancher living outside the alligator-infested nature reserve, told FOX News that nobody can survive out there.

"I've been in the woods in and out all my life … I have learned a lot in my life, and one thing I know is no one is gonna survive out there for two weeks on foot," McEwen told the news outlet.

Gabby Petito's parents conducted a funeral for their daughter Sunday afternoon at the Moloney Funeral Home in Holbrook, New York. People from all walks of life, including friends and Petito's former co-workers, gathered at the venue.

Petito, 22, disappeared in August during a cross-country trip with Brian Laundrie. The duo was documenting their journey on Instagram with the hashtag #VanLife before she went missing. Brian had returned to Florida three days later without her. Her remains were found at a campground in Wyoming last week after Petito's parents reported her missing on Sept. 10.

The case captured national attention, with many criticizing its widespread media coverage while ignoring similar cases involving people of color. A Bay Area news anchor was recently suspended indefinitely after she requested to cover "missing white woman syndrome" highlighting the Petito case, The Mercury News reported.

KTVU news anchor Frank Somerville faced action following a newsroom dispute over the coverage of the case. Reports said Somerville, who has a Black adopted daughter, requested to add a brief tagline that focused on the "disproportionate media coverage that missing white women tend to receive compared with women of color."

brian laundrie house
North Port Police officers stands in the driveway of Brian Laundrie, who is a person of interest after his fiancé Gabby Petito went missing on Sept. 20, 2021 in North Port, Florida. Octavio Jones/Getty Images