CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — After receiving about 500 tips from viewers, John Walsh, host of “In Pursuit With John Walsh” on the Investigation Discovery network, believes he has narrowed down the list of possible locations Brian Laundrie could be.
“We had at least three times more phone calls than we’ve had on any fugitive.” Walsh said.
In just three seasons of his show, Walsh has helped authorities capture 26 fugitives and locate eight missing children. He covered the Gabby Petito investigation on his show this week.
“We haven’t had this much attention since Elizabeth Smart,” Walsh said.
Walsh said the tips he has received lead him to three possible locations: Mexico, the Bahamas and the Appalachian Trail.
Walsh’s theory, which he said some of his tips also point to, is that Laundrie’s father or parents drove him Northwest over the Florida Panhandle toward Mexico.
“I think they bought this guy nine days,” Walsh said. “He had a big head start so I say now with all the chaos at the border — I caught 45 guys in Mexico — they drove him north, over the Panhandle.”
He also says he received tips that Laundrie had been seen in Freeport in the Bahamas and that he had bragged about previously living for three months on the Appalachian Trail.
Meanwhile, searchers continued to look for Laundrie in a Florida reserve.
He has been named a person of interest in the 22-year-old Petito’s death. This week, he was indicted on a bank fraud charge connected to a debit card he used after she disappeared.