NORTH PORT – The journey from Moab to North Port is more than two-thousand miles, which means investigators on this case have their work cut out for them.
SNN spoke with an expert who explained what steps he would take to find the missing social media star.
Mapping out the couple’s every move while on the road will be the first of many tedious steps to come for detectives.
The private investigator we spoke to has no relations to the case and he is not showing his face or sharing his full name due to his line of work.
The missing North Port woman has not been heard from since late August, and investigators believe her fiancé Brian Laundrie was the last person to see her.
“At this point everybody’s a suspect and nobody is obviously because again – you don’t have a homicide because yet,” said John.
John is a private detective with Walton Investigations. He says talking to Brian is key to figuring out the missing parts of this puzzle, and since Brian isn’t talking, John says investigators should look to cell towers.
That would show where the couple’s phones were at the last time of transmission. But that doesn’t mean that’s where Gabby will be.
“You’ve got something that basically started in North Port, FL and ended up in Moab, Utah,” said John. “You got literally a whole between you, so theoretically you got a 2,000-mile crime scene here.”
John says if detectives want a better chance at finding the missing woman and fast – they need boots on the ground.
“We don’t know what happened along the way or when and you’re going to have to start at the last known location where you can verify her presence,” he said.
John believes the search will only get more challenging from there.
“Then you’re going to have to start working your way backwards. You’re going to have to go everywhere you can verify that she’s been. You’re going to have to talk to the people she would’ve interacted with,” he said. “You’re going to have to search for video tapes, you don’t have a lot of time the evidence will start to get old and very quickly.”
John tells SNN the overall challenge for investigators handling this case will be not knowing where the evidence will lead them.
And when running only on speculations – locating gabby could take longer than desired.
“She’s going to interact with people at some point,” said John. “Did she catch a ride with anybody? Has her bank card been accessed? Some of it seems obvious but you don’t know any of it.”
Questions everyone’s asking, but no one has the answers to.
The North Port Police Chief says the reason why Brian is only a person of interest in Gabby’s disappearance is because at this time no crime has been committed.
But as more evidence is collected that could very well change.