Brian Laundrie update – live: Wyoming coroner clarifies that Gabby Petito likely strangled ‘with human hands

The coroner who performed the autopsy on Gabby Petito has clarified that she was likely strangled “with human hands.”

Teton County, Wyoming Coroner Brent Blue explained his findings in more detail during an interview with NewsNation Now the day after announcing that Ms Petito died by “manual strangulation/throttling.”

“Throttling generally means that it was done with human hands as opposed to an instrument,” Mr Blue told the outlet.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be, but manual strangulation basically means it was not done with equipment.”

He also revealed that Ms Petito was likely left in the wilderness for three to four weeks before the discovery of her body last month.

The America’s Most Wanted host says in Gabby Petito: ID Special Report that Mr Laundrie may have slipped across the border.

“We’ve had over a thousand solid tips to the ‘In Pursuit’ hotline. Most of them are about my theory of his father driving him to the Mexican border and letting him go through Mexico,” said Walsh.

“It’s a great time to be heading south, because [there are] thousands of refugees … I mean, he could walk across the border naked with his hair on fire, and nobody would notice him,” Walsh says. “I think that’s maybe where he’s hiding — and somebody might be helping him.”

Gabby Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, responded to Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino’s comments following the announcement that her daughter died of strangulation.

Mr Bertolino noted in his response that Mr Laundrie has not been charged in the woman’s death.

Ms Schmidt called the lawyer’s words “garbage.”

The Independent’s Graeme Massie has more of Ms Schmidt’s comments below…

Teton County Coroner Dr Brent Blue chastised the media during a press conference on Tuesday in which he revealed that Gabby Petito died due to strangulation.

Dr Blue said the media frenzy over Ms Petito’s case overshadowed coverage of numerous people who are killed each year due to domestic violence.

However, The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe argued that without the media’s dogged coverage of the case, it may have taken much longer to locate Ms Petito’s remains.

Read his argument below…

Teton County Coroner Dr Brent Blue has turned over Gabby Petito’s remains to a mortuary in Wyoming, where they will be cremated.

Ms Petito’s father, Joseph Petito, is in Wyoming and will be collecting her remains after cremation.

Duane Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter, said he was going to stay in Florida because he had a “change of plans and couldn’t bring himself to leave” the search for Brian Laundrie.

Last week it was reported that Mr Chapman was leaving the search to deal with an injury to his ankle he sustained while looking for Mr Laundrie.

Gabby Petito’s friends have reacted to the revelation that the woman died of strangulation sometime in late August.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” friend Alyssa Chen told the outlet. “I wonder what was going through her mind, knowing she was probably about to die. She must have been so scared.”

The Independent’s Graig Graziosi has more of their comments below…

A former prosecutor told Fox News that a first degree murder charge is likely on the way after it was revealed on Tuesday that Gabby Petito was killed by strangulation.

Mark Eiglarsh, a criminal defense attorney and former Miami-Dade County prosecutor, made the comments on Tuesday.

“It almost always gets you first-degree murder because premeditation can be formed in an instant,” he said. “You put your hands around the neck, that’s an unwanted touching, that’s simple battery or assault. Then you start to squeeze, your argument could be, ‘Well, I just wanted to scare them.’ But then you contuse to affix pressure… There’s a certain amount of minimal time that someone needs to do that before somebody is dead.”

He said premeditation would likely be a reasonable conclusion based on the time it takes to kill someone through strangulation.

“I think there’s a strong argument that if premeditation didn’t exist prior to the physical contact, it certainly was developed at some point during the strangulation,” he said.

Someone reportedly sent letters to Brian Laundrie’s parents and neighbors with letters urging them to “do the right thing.”

The letters to the Laundrie’s neighbors contained $20 for donuts and coffee.

North Port police collected the letters and the cash. It is unclear who sent the letters.

The Teton County coroner confirmed on Tuesday that Gabby Petito died from strangulation 3-4 weeks before her body was found on 19 September.

The Independent’s staff has compiled a timeline detailing the discovery of Ms Petito’s body, including the currently known details about how she died.