Could Brian Laundrie still be alive if he’s on the Carlton Reservation in Florida? Here’s what survival experts think



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On September 1, Laundrie got into Petito’s van in North Port, Florida, home from a cross-country trip the couple had taken earlier in the summer, police said. Petito’s remains were later found in Teton County, Wyoming.

Dozens of officers from agencies such as the FBI, the North Port Police Department, the Florida Wildlife Commission, several sheriff’s offices, and K9 search and rescue teams have searched the reserve since Laundrie’s parents took over. first spoke to police on September 17th.

CNN asked survival experts if it was possible Laundrie was alive if he had been on the reserve since mid-September. Here is what they said.

It depends on his supplies and experience

In an ABC interview that aired last week, Laundrie’s sister Cassie Laundrie said he has already taken trips of up to five days on the Appalachian Trail. She said her brother was a “poor survivalist”.

Robert Urban, founder and chief instructor of Urban Survival Academy, said he believes it is highly unlikely that a person not professionally trained in survival tactics could survive on the reserve for that long.

Constant updates have left authorities and the public confused about Laundrie's disappearance.  This is what we know

“The climate in Florida is very, very difficult,” Urban told CNN. “I’m an expert with a lot of experience, and that would be all I could do to survive for (more) three weeks. Someone with no experience, you can’t be lucky and survive in that kind of climate.”

The list of challenges that the laundry could face is not short. There are wild animals that could harm him, including water moccasins, pigs, bears and alligators, survival experts told CNN. There have also been sightings of panthers in the reserve in the past. If Laundrie was on the reserve for that long, he probably wouldn’t be functioning in the best frame of mind either, several experts added, due to the anxiety of trying to escape authorities and trying to survive. , which could hamper his ability to survive.

“When you’re tired you’re not as defensive, you’re not as vigilant as you should be,” Urban said.

Jason Marsteiner, founder and president of Survival University, said that when he sent interns from his program into the wild – for about a week after taking a 50-day course – they struggled.

“Twenty-five days in this region is extremely hard. I wouldn’t want to do it and I have training in the jungle, I have training in the mountains,” he said. “He doesn’t sleep well, and when you don’t sleep you slowly go crazy, so he would make bad decisions, bad choices and I think that would make him find, get hurt or perish.”

He would need shelter, water, food

It is not known what Laundrie took with him when he left. His parents told police he left the house with a backpack. Experts say that much of his ability to still be alive if he was in the reserve depends on his preparation when he would have entered and his ability to find the three basic elements: shelter, l water and food.
Timeline of the case of Gabby Petito, 22
“If he had some means to sanitize the water by filtration and (cover) to protect himself from the elements and things like that, he could survive for a while,” survival expert Dave Canterbury told Erin on Thursday. CNN’s Burnett. “If he had the means to collect food and process that food, he could survive even longer.”

But Laundrie would likely have to process and cook the food he gathers, Canterbury added, and if his water filtration system broke, he would have to find another way to sanitize the water. Those two things would probably require him to start a fire. But North Port Police spokesman Josh Taylor told CNN’s Randi Kaye on Friday that authorities had found no physical evidence of Laundrie on the reservation. Police also disputed the discovery of a recently used campsite – information which was provided to CNN by a source close to the Laundrie family.

“Lighting the fire is going to be a big no-no for (Laundrie) if he doesn’t want to be found or seen, so I think it’s going to be very difficult for him to stay there for a very long period of time. “Canterbury said. But he added that Laundrie might have had enough in his backpack to survive to this point.

Alan McEwen, a cattle rancher and outdoorsman who lives near the reserve, said the area looked like “mud,” with parts of the reserve reaching knee-deep water levels and at the waist, which makes camping in this wilderness extremely difficult.

Weather and environmental factors complicate Brian Laundrie's research, experts say

“The palmettes out there alone are enough to trip you up, when you walk through them, when you trip through them,” McEwen told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday night. “Mosquitoes will take you out, anyone out there for more than a day without mosquito spray, you’d go crazy with the bugs grabbing you and everything.”

“There is just no possible way for anyone to survive like this,” he added. “Anybody.”

As Byron Kerns, founder of Itchatad Outdoors Survival School, sees it, Laundrie’s most immediate need would be water, and if he had a water filtration pump with him, it might last for him. gallons. But after three weeks, Laundrie would need to get some food, and if he’s not trained and doesn’t have the right tools, it can be difficult knowing what to eat and how to get it.

“Insects can also be a source of protein in nature, but does he know? Kerns said.

Drone footage shows the Carlton Preserve in Venice, Florida on October 8, 2021.

Experts think he’s not alive or in there

Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino told CNN in response to a question that he “hopes” Laundrie is still alive. Taylor, the North Port Police spokesperson, told CNN it was “certainly possible” that Laundrie was alive.

“Nothing to suggest one way or another,” Taylor said in an email.

Survival experts CNN spoke to seem to agree that Laundrie is either no longer alive or not on the reserve.

“(The authorities) probably have some of their best people in the country looking for him and they haven’t found any sign of him,” Marsteiner said. “The 25,000 acres sounds huge, but when you have so many people roaming the area, it really isn’t.”

He is highly unlikely to camp and continue to elude search teams looking for him, Urban added.

No physical sign of Brian Laundrie has yet been found in a Florida nature reserve, police say

“An untrained guy used to walking trails isn’t going to escape a team of experts like that, just by hiding,” Urban said, adding that he also believed Laundrie wasn’t on the reserve or was not alive there.

If Laundrie is in the reserve but is no longer alive, finding him becomes more and more difficult as the days go by, Urban added, with the movement of water and sand, as well as the passing animals. But there is also no indication that Laundrie is deceased.

“When you have something dead in there you’re going to have buzzards flying all over the place,” McEwen told Cuomo on Friday. “You can’t see a buzzard flying anywhere, and no buzzard has flown in any direction from this place.”

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