Mother Gabby Petito confirms sighting of Gabby's van in Grand Teton days after ...

Florida authorities have resumed the search for Brian Laundrie - the person-of-intertest in the disappearance of his fiancé Gabby Petito - at an alligator-infested Florida park after he fled his parents' home, as cops are granted tracking access to the couple's cellphones.  

He has refused to cooperate with police and on Tuesday, he disappeared from his family's Florida home.

Petito, who last spoke to her family on August 25, was reported missing on September 11 after Laundrie returned to home from their trip alone. 

Currently, police are searching Spread Creek Campground, where the pair were parking their van during their stay at Grand Teton National Park, according to Petito's thedyrt.com account. 

This morning, Petito's parents shared a video on their 'Find Gabby' Facebook page from YouTuber 'Red, White & Bethune' that caught a Ford Transit Van with Florida plates that the posters believe to be the vehicle that Petito and Laundrie had used to travel the country. 

The video was taken on August 27 at around 6.30 pm at the Spread Creek Campground, where police are currently searching for the missing girl.

'We have this video, so does the FBI,' wrote the family on the Sunday morning post. 'We believe this is the van for multiple reasons.'   

'It’s a very important piece of information as it pretty much starts the timeline,' Petito's stepmother, Nichole Schmidt, told MailOnline. 'This new video of the actual van being seen on the 27th appears legit. That was the last location the van might have been seen. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle.'

'It’s essential and there might be more videos out there that people haven’t even realized they have yet,' she added. “If people were recording videos or just taking pictures, they need to start looking through their stuff.'   

Meanwhile, Gabby’s mother dismissed the TikTok video that’s been widely circulated in which a young woman describes picking up a man she believed to be Brian on the 29th.

'We are not entertaining the TikTok video as legitimate due to the fact the timeline seems way off. Maybe she thought it was him, but I just know the timeline is off. The van left there the night of the 27th or early on the 28th. The van was in Florida on the first. It’s not possible for it to have been there on the 29th.' 

Wisconsin TikToker Miranda Baker said she and her boyfriend were at Grand Teton National Park in Colter Bay, Wyoming, on August 29 when Laundrie approached the couple and asked them for a ride at 5.30pm.  

'He approached us asking for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson and we were going to Jackson that night. So I said, ya know, 'hop in' and he hopped in the back of my Jeep,' Baker explained. 'So that was kind of weird.'

She noted Laundrie, 23, was wearing 'a backpack, a long sleeve, pants and hiking boots' and said that before he got in the car he  offered to pay the couple $200 to give him a 10-mile ride. 

His parents told investigators on Friday that their son told them on September 14, when they last saw him, that he was headed to his frequent hiking spot Myakkahatchee Creek Environment Park, which is tied to the 25,000 acre Carlton Reserve.

Today, a team of 50 police officers from six different agencies 'used to dealing with [the] elements' of sprawling, alligator-infested Carlton Reserve, will search for Laundrie. The swathe of officers are using bloodhounds, drones and 4x4 vehicles in their search, said North Port Police information chief Josh Taylor.

They did not find anything yesterday, although police said they took some of Laundrie's clothing from his parents' home to provide a scent for search dogs.   

'We have had drones in the air, we have got bloodhounds, K9s, four by four vehicles. It's very wet, it's muddy. There are a few unpaved dirt roads. It's a place that people hike. There are mountain bike trails out here. The Myakkahatchee Creek runs down into the city.'

Asked if he believed there were concerns for Laundrie's safety, Taylor said: 'Sure, I think that's fair to say. There is an enormous amount of pressure I'm sure on him to provide answers on what's going on here.'

He could not confirm if Laundrie owns a gun.  

Meanwhile, police in Wyoming will resume their search of the Spread Creek Campsite just east of Grand Teton National Park, where Petito's step parents said they believe she was on August 25, when they last spoke with her via phone.  Gabby had listed the campground on an account she had created last July with thedyrt.com.

Petito, the 22-year-old 'van-life' girl, has been missing since August 24. Laundrie returned home to Florida on September 1 and had refused to cooperate with authorities trying find her.  

Yesterday, as police combed the two locations, protestors amassed outside Laundrie's family home in North Port, chanting 'where is Gabby?' throughout the day. 

Just two blocks away, an 18-year-old driving to the protest with his grandmother photographed a man who looked a 'heck' of a lot like Laundrie about two blocks from the home, just an hour and a half before the Laundries' family attorney reported the 23-year-old missing and investigators from the North Port Police Department showed up at the family's home, according to the New York Post.   

Zachary Randazzo explained that when he and his grandmother turned down the street they 'were shocked (because) what looked like his clone was walking down the street'. 

'We then watched him as he turned down the next street over and we drove past him again to get a second look,' he added.  

Randazzo then drove around the street a third time, and took the photo. 'After taking it and pulling up a picture of him online and looking at them side-by-side we were thinking, '"Wow this looks just like him, how can it not be him?"'     

Petito's parents shared a video on their 'Find Gabby' Facebook page early this morning from YouTuber Red, White & Bethune', that caught a Ford Transit Van with Florida plates that the posters believe to be the vehicle that Petito and Laundrie had used to travel the country. The video was taken on August 27 at around 6.30 pm at the Spread Creek Campground, where police are currently searching for the missing girl.

'We have this video, so does the FBI,' wrote the family on the Sunday morning post. 'We believe this is the van for multiple reasons.'   

Officials also searched an area on the east side of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on Saturday for Petito, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. As a result, Spread Creek campground was closed around 7 am, and the area will remain closed to the public for the next few days. 

The Denver FBI is the lead agency on the search and set up a mini base camp several hundred feet up the blocked off road away from the main highway.  

DailyMail.com observed search and rescue vehicles carry kayaks and rafts along with off road quads enter into the dispersed campground early on Saturday - at 4PM DailyMail.com about 25 search vehicles left the campground. A source told DailyMail.com, the search was called off for the day because of inclement weather.     

Earlier on Saturday, a Grand Teton Park Ranger told DailyMail.com, 'there is a group of park rangers that is searching for Gabby Petito in the backcountry of the park.

This is the park's elite search and rescue unit.

'I believe there may also be a search going on in a remote area of Yellowstone National Park.'  

Authorities believe that Petito's last known location was in or around the Grand Teton National Park.

The park itself spans more than 310,000 acres and 485 square miles the backcountry consists of several hundred square miles on the west side of the park, it's a hike- in area only.

Petito's stepfather, Jim Schmidt, told DailyMail.com, that they are confident she made it to the area but aren't sure where she may have ended up camping.

'Members of search unit at the park can be air lifted to various remote areas for a search,' added the ranger. 'They don't tell us specifics they sort of do what they do.'

DailyMail.com located an account on thedyrt.com for Gabby and Brian V. that was last updated on July 14, 2021. 

On the list are several dispersed campsites in the Grand Teton/Jackson area which are often free for stays up to 14 days in some place.

DailyMail.com went to several of these campsites which were in remote areas near the park- off the grid. 

Cellular phone service was spotty. In one dispersed campsite, Dailymail.com arrived minutes after a grizzly was observed at the side of the road digging up an animal it had previously buried.

Grizzly bears aren't the only predators Petito would face out in the wilderness, there are red foxes, coyotes, bobcats and cougars that roam the park.

In Florida, North Port police tweeted a photo of the search parties massing in the park, with at least 30 people present. 

Laundrie's family says he entered the area earlier this week. 

The T. Mabry Carlton Reserve covers nearly 25,000 acres and is 15 miles from the Laundrie home in North Port. It has 80 miles of equestrian, hiking and biking trails. 

North Port Police communications chief Josh Taylor told Dailymail.com, 'That reserve covers a massive, swampland. 

Police, FBI and the green-clad local Sarasota Sheriff's Department deputies were moving around in ATV vehicles as the search for Laundrie intensified today.

One particular area of interest with searchers is the 160-acre Myakkahatchee Creek Environment Park, which connects to the massive Carlton Reserve, and is filled with hiking trails amid the expanse of swamp and dense woodland.

One Sheriff's deputy was seen moving along a pathway into thick undergrowth carrying a machete. Officers remained tight lipped about the search when asked.

Other law enforcement were moving around the location on the perimeter of the environment park in the back of pick-up trucks

Laundrie's family did not tell authorities he was missing for three days.   

Police said the Laundrie family called the FBI Friday night to talk about their son's disappearance, describing their frustration that this was the first time they had been willing to speak with investigators in detail amid the search for Petito. 

Petito's mother has slammed her boyfriend Brian Laundrie saying 'he's not missing, he's hiding' after his attorney said the man now named a person of interest in her daughter's disappearance hasn't been seen since Tuesday.

Petito's mom Nichole Schmidt reacted angrily to the news that Laundrie had vanished and suggested he is on the run, following a fraught week where she has issued several public pleas asking him and his family to cooperate with investigators. 

'He's not missing, he's hiding!' she told DailyMail.com. 'Gabby is missing!' 

North Port Police and the FBI confirmed they are searching for Laundrie, whose family say they last saw him Tuesday wearing a hiking bag.