Florida police who lost Brian Laundrie charged 100k in overtime on the case

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The months-long investigation by North Port police into the disappearances and deaths of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie allegedly cost more than $100,000 (£74,000) in overtime pay.

A spokesperson for the North Port Police Department said on Monday that although it did not track how much it was spending on its investigations, the cost of paying overtime was over $100,000 (£74,000).

North Port Public Information Officer Josh Taylor told reporters that the $119,358 (£89,000) reflected more than 2,000 hours in overtime by North Port Police Department investigators.

That was about 30 times more than in September 2020, when 105 hours in overtime cost the force $3,800 (£2,800).

According to the North Port Sun and ABC7 News, Mr Taylor went on to say that total payroll costs were in excess of $180,000 (£134,000) from September 2020 to September 2021.

That included the more than $100,000 (£74,000) for working on the investigation into the couple who went missing following a road trip in August.

The North Port Police Department began investigating the disappearance of 22-year-old Ms Petito on 11 September and was initially the lead investigative agency until mid-September.

That was when the FBI assumed control of the investigation, and by 19 September Ms Petito’s body had been found in rural Wyoming.

Mr Laundrie, who had become a person of interest and later a suspect in the murder of his fiancé, went missing from North Port, Florida.

His remains were found almost a month later, on 20 October, and North Port police were later accused of failing to monitor his whereabouts in the week of his disappearance.

While a Wyoming coroner said Ms Petito had died of strangulation, an autopsy on the body of Mr Laundrie failed to determine a cause of death.

Both Ms Petito and Mr Laundrie lived with his parents in North Port, Florida.