The home of missing Brian Laundrie was suddenly surrounded by cops tonight as officers probed reports of gunshots and quizzed his mother over a possible disturbance.
Amid tense scenes a dozen police vehicles swamped the family residence in North Port Florida at 6:45pm on Friday night and ordered onlookers to stand back.
An officer was seen racing into a neighbors' yard and peering over the fence into the home where parents Christopher, 62, and Roberta, 55, have been holed up since reporting their fugitive son missing in the wake of Gabby Petito's homicide.
Moments later Roberta opened the front door and spoke anxiously to an officer who was overheard asking her about a 'disturbance'. He left several minutes later.
Police colleagues meanwhile knocked on the adjacent homes and asked similar questions, asking one if they had heard a 'loud bang' coming from a wooded area behind the Laundries' yard.
Police later confirmed that the 911 call was being investigated as a possible prank.
The home of missing Brian Laundrie was suddenly surrounded by cops tonight as officers probed reports of gunshots and quizzed his mother over a possible disturbance
Moments later Roberta opened the front door and spoke anxiously to an officer who was overheard asking her about a 'disturbance'. He left several minutes later
Police colleagues meanwhile knocked on the adjacent homes and asked similar questions, asking one if they had heard a 'loud bang' coming from a wooded area behind the Laundries' yard
Gabby Petitio's body was found in the Spread Creek campsite in Wyoming on Sunday and the next day her death was ruled a homicide
'They asked me whether we heard a disturbance or anything like that,' said next-door neighbor Keith Graves, 52.
'I figured it was a prank or something like that'
Another neighbor, who declined to be named added: 'Somebody reported a loud bang and police came running into the back yard.
'We didn't hear anything. They were looking into the woods behind. I think it may be connected to the land behind the house.'
The incident was soon determined to be a false alarm and the dozens of cops who lined the street were stood down.
A spokesman for the North Port Police Department said: 'At 6:45pm NPPD received a report of gunshots in the area of Brian Landries' home from unknown.
'No injuries are reported. Right now, no evidence any shots were actually fired in the area. No reports from the large contingency of media who were standing outside the home, either.'
The incident was soon determined to be a false alarm and the dozens of cops who lined the street were stood down. A spokesman for the North Port Police Department said: 'At 6:45pm NPPD received a report of gunshots in the area of Brian Landries' home from unknown
FBI and North Port police entered their sixth-day in the search for Brian Laundrie, 23 in alligator-infested Florida swampland that has so far cost an estimated $1.2million – and with no trace of him, a search and rescue expert has exclusively told DailyMail.com.
Mike Hadsell – who knows the 25,000-acre Carlton Reserve search area intimately - added that Laundrie's parents could face the bill if it's proven they deceived police by wrongly telling them it's where he said he was heading last time they saw him.
More than 50 searchers from the FBI plus cops in Laundrie's home town of North Port and several other law enforcement agencies are on their sixth day hunting for him in the highly dangerous and dense swampland.
The FBI has now issued a federal arrest warrant for Laundrie, 23, in connection with the death of van-life girlfriend Gabby Petito, 22, whose body was found in a remote area of Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming on
