“He is out in the wilderness, I promise you,” Davis, 21, tells PEOPLE, noting this is not the first time he’s lived in the wild on his own.
This morning, the search for Laundrie continued in Carlton Reserve, a 25,000-acre nature reserve consisting primarily of swampy wetlands.
The 23-year-old reportedly left last week for a nature hike and has not been seen since.
The search for Brian Laundrie in Carlton Reserve.Courtesy North Port Police
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Laundrie returned alone, authorities have said.He has refused to sit with investigatorsto discuss the case.
“This is a very heartbreaking tragedy,” Davis says. “It is so surreal. It is so just horrific. There’s almost a loss of words for it because no one deserves to go out this way, especially not her.”
Davis tells PEOPLE she has been talking to police and FBI agents, telling them everything she knows about Laundrie. She suspects he is on the run, in the swamps, and not holed up with someone who might be harboring him.
“He does not have friends,” Davis said. “He reads books.”
According to Davis, she became friends withLaundrie, too,as her friendship with Petito, 22, blossomed.
“You don’t know what it’s like for someone you considered a friend to murder your best friend,” she says. “I’ve stayed at their house. I’ve slept in the same house as him. I ate dinners with him, played board games with him, gone to the beach — even though he didn’t really hang out with us at the beach — but going to the beach with him. That’s scary.”
On Sept. 15 Laundrie,now a fugitive from the law, wasnamed a person of interestin Petito’s disappearance. Laundrie has not, however, been identified as a suspect in his fiancée’s death.
When he vanished, sparking a massive manhunt utilizing drones, divers, and search dogs, Davis says she was nervous that Laundrie would show up at her house.
“He knows where I live,” Davis explains. “When he first went missing, there was a small percentage of me that was like, he definitely knows where I live. And he does not like me.”
source: people.com
