A large van and boat from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office arrived midday Wednesday at the Carlton Reserve, a swampy 25,000-acre reserve in Venice, Florida, where Laundrie told his parents he was headed last week.
North Port Police said the arrival of the dive team “does not mean anything has been found. It’s a part of the overall search process.”
The team, made up of about 10 divers, was requested by North Port Police on Wednesday morning, said Sarasota County Sheriff’s office spokesperson Kaitlyn Perez.
“These divers are specifically trained and very talented in low visibility bodies of water,” Perez said. “They dive down where you and I can’t see anything at all. They utilize technology and other special equipment to help them get down deep into really deep bodies of water, so they’re out there right now to recover whatever it is that they might find.”
The fourth day of searching the reserve ended Wednesday evening, according to officials.
“Nothing found. We will be back out Thursday, similar operation,” North Port Police tweeted.
Petito’s remains were recovered in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest on Sunday, and a coroner made an initial determination on Tuesday that she died by homicide.
Laundrie, believed to be the last person to see Petito alive, declined to speak with authorities looking into her disappearance. His parents then reported him missing on September 17, saying he had left home three days earlier and hadn’t returned.
The FBI said the agency would like information from anyone who may have had contact with Petito or Laundrie, anyone who visited the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in the Bridger-Teton National Forest between August 27-30 or anyone who may have seen their vehicle.
Given the national attention on the case, several people have come forward to say they interacted with the couple in late August. And evidence from a 911 call about a “domestic dispute” involving Petito and Laundrie shows the couple’s volatile relationship was not as aspirational as their sun-drenched lives on Instagram and YouTube suggested.
Search for Laundrie focused on nature reserve
Laundrie’s parents told investigators he left their home in North Port with a backpack September 14 to go to the reserve near Venice.
The swampy, wild landscape of the Carlton Reserve has made the search particularly difficult.
“Please be aware, the Carlton Reserve is a vast and unforgiving location at times. It is currently (waist) deep in water in many areas,” police said. “This is dangerous work for the search crews as they are wading through gator and snake infested swamps and flooded hiking and biking trails.”
In addition, Laundrie’s parents, Christopher and Roberta Laundrie, were questioned at their home by the FBI.
Witnesses tell police about their interactions with the couple
In a series of videos on TikTok, Miranda Baker said she and her boyfriend gave Laundrie a ride on August 29 in Wyoming — and that he claimed he was camping by himself for multiple days while Petito was back at their van working on social media posts.
Baker said they picked up Laundrie while he was hitchhiking in Colter Bay, Wyoming, which is not far from where Petito’s remains were found. He offered to pay $200 for the ride before he even got in the car, she said.
In her TikTok videos, Baker said that when Laundrie found out she and her boyfriend were going to Jackson Hole instead of Jackson, he got agitated, asked that the vehicle stop, and got out near the Jackson Dam. She said they dropped him off less than 30 minutes after picking him up.
Baker said she has spoken to law enforcement about the interaction with Laundrie. North Port Police confirmed to CNN that Baker spoke with the department before posting the videos on TikTok.
“Her account is plausible, it appears,” North Port police spokesperson Josh Taylor said.
CNN has not been able to independently verify Baker’s claims. The FBI has not returned CNN requests for comment.
Further, evidence has also emerged suggesting tension was building between the couple.
A man who saw the domestic dispute between Petito and Laundrie in Utah last month said, “They were talking aggressively at each other, and something seemed off.”
In a handwritten sworn statement, the witness named Chris — whose last name was redacted in the document provided by Moab City Police to CNN — said it appeared that the two were arguing over control of Petito’s phone. “At one point she was punching him in the arm and/or face and trying to get into the van.”
The witness said he heard Petito say, “Why do you have to be so mean?” although Chris added that he couldn’t be sure if the comment was meant to be taken seriously. Moab City Police responded to the incident, and the couple agreed to spend the night apart.
“We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl,” the caller says. “Then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car, and they drove off.”
Finally, her conversations with her mother appeared to reveal she had “more and more tension” with Laundrie, according to a police affidavit for a search warrant of an external hard drive found in the couple’s van.
Petito sent multiple text messages and had many talks with her mother during her trip, Florida police wrote in an application filed last week. On August 27, Petito’s mother received one last communication from her daughter, which she called an “odd text,” the affidavit says.
The message read: “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls.” Because the text message referred to Petito’s grandfather as Stan, her mother was concerned that something was wrong, the warrant states.
Following that text message, Petito’s phone was no longer operational, and she stopped posting anything on social media about their trip, the warrant says.
One more text came on August 30 that read, “No service in Yosemite.” Her family doubts she wrote it.
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Steve Almasy, Gregory Lemos, Rebekah Riess, Jennifer Henderson and Andy Rose contributed to this report.