[imagesource: AP]

As the search for Brian Laundrie, who has now been named a “person of interest” by the FBI in the death of Gabby Petito, continues, further reports of encounters with the couple are coming to light.

Petito’s body was found on Sunday in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, on the eastern edge of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.

Autopsy results have ruled her death a homicide. The official cause of death remains pending until the final autopsy results are released.

Yesterday, a couple who had given Laundrie a lift while he was hitchhiking spoke out, saying he seemed agitated.

Jessica Schultz, a graphic designer who was at the Bridger-Teton National Forest in late August, also reached out to the FBI “about a strange man she says she had encountered driving a van in the area”.

She says that man was Laundrie, which places him in the area where Petito’s body was found.

The latest reported encounter comes via Nina Celie Angelo, who has “detailed the chaotic experience she witnessed” when sitting in a Wyoming restaurant next to Petito and Laundrie.

Newsweek reports:

On August 27 between 1 and 2 p.m. local time, Angelo and her boyfriend, Matthew England, ate at Merry Piglets, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson Hole…

Angelo claimed that she witnessed Laundrie yelling at the restaurant’s hostess…

Image: YouTube

“They like left abruptly, and [Petito] was standing on the sidewalk crying and [Laundrie] walked back in and was, like, screaming at the hostess and then walked back out,” Angelo continued. “And then he walked back in, like, four more times to talk to the manager and to, like, tell the hostess off.”

…”[Petito was] crying. And [Laundrie was] like, more angry,” Angelo said. “Like, you could tell like, it’s more sadness for her and she’s crying for some reason. I don’t know the reason. I don’t know if she was embarrassed or what…This happened right before she died.”

The restaurant in question confirmed that Petito and Laundrie were present on that day.

When considered in conjunction with other sightings of the couple, a picture of Laundrie as unstable and aggressive begins to emerge.

That’s a far cry from the picture painted in the couple’s YouTube video, posted on August 19, dealing the beginning of their van life journey:

Laundrie’s last Instagram post is dated August 13, and Petito’s August 26.

The BBC reports that authorities resumed the search for Laundrie yesterday, zeroing in on the Carlton Reserve, a 24 000-acre county park in Florida’s Sarasota County:

An underwater dive team arrived at the reserve later that day to assist with the search.

“A weekend ground search and aerial search Monday of the 25,000-acre preserve has yet to yield any answers, but we must press on,” spokesman Josh Taylor told WTSP, a local affiliate of CBS News.

“Please be aware, the Carlton Reserve is a vast and unforgiving location at times.”

Dogs and drones are also being used as part of the search efforts, in an area that is around 75% underwater.

The search area is about 20 minutes away from the Laundrie family’s home.

[sources:newsweek&bbc]