Brian Laundrie is a fugitive facing a federal arrest warrant and likely other serious charges in the future.
The disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito continues to haunt her family, who want answers and justice.
Brian’s sister spoke out and urged him to turn himself in, but the rest of his family has done nothing of the sort.
Gabby’s loved ones are mourning, but they’re also angry — and say that Brian’s parents know more than they’re saying.
This might not be a new sentiment for the Petito family, but it is a new interview.
Alongside their family spokesperson, attorney Richard Stafford, they sat down with Dr. Phil.
As you can see in this clip, they did not mince words when it came to Brian’s flight from justice.
Dr. Phil addressed how Brian’s ongoing fugitive status could hurt him in the long run, and his family might be able to fix that.
“You can look at his state of mind by his actions,” Stafford says of Brian in this clip from the interview.
“He ran, he stole her credit card, he used her credit card to get home,” he listed.
“And then,” Stafford continued, Brian “ran from the police.”
As Dr. Phil observed, all of Brian’s actions make him look more “guilty” and “culpable” and “insidious.”
Stafford notes that no story that Brian could tell in his eventual defense could possibly make sense in light of Brian’s behavior over the past month.
Stafford shared that it is his belief that Brian Laundrie used Gabby’s stolen card to cover his expenses on the way back home to Florida.
This was, of course, after the last person — other than Brian — had seen Gabby alive.
With those stolen funds, Brian returned to North Port and met with his family.
From then, as we know, he refused to speak to police.
By that point, Gabby’s family was already sick with worry and feared that something was not right.
Authorities notified them that Brian and the van had returned to Florida … with no sign of Gabby.
Upon returning to Florida, Brian could hypothetically have told the police anything that he wanted.
He could have claimed that Gabby went on a hike in a different forest, far from where her body was found.
He could have made purchases using her stolen card to send investigators looking elsewhere.
Investigators would have still had questions for Brian and regarded him with suspicion … but there would have been other angles to pursue.
Instead, Brian returned home without Gabby and refused to speak to anyone other than his family about it.
He also immediately hired an attorney. Later, without having said a word about Gabby’s whereabouts, he vanished.
We suppose that it’s a good thing that Brian had neither the foresight nor the creativity to come up with a plausible explanation for Gabby’s absence.
Additionally, the allegation that he used Gabby’s card after her death both ties her to him and gave federal authorities grounds for an arrest warrant.
(He will have a harder time claiming at trial that Gabby wandered off or was abducted by someone else, since he is the one who allegedly used her card)
Officially, Brian has not been charged with her murder, but legal experts say that this may be a simple matter of prosecutors waiting for his arrest.
The longer that he evades those looking for him, the stronger the prosecution’s case will be.
If the Laundrie family knows where he is, telling the FBI his location could be their best bet at him being found alive. But at this point, they might only have guesses.
