The body of 18-year-old Giovanni Pelletier, who disappeared while on a family vacation in Florida, has been found, according to his family’s statement to ABC11.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said the remains were recovered Friday in a retention pond near the southbound off-ramp of Interstate 75 and State Road 70 in Manatee County, close to Bradenton — the same area where Giovanni’s bookbag had been found. Authorities said the site was among those searched during the first day of the investigation.
Giovanni, a recent graduate of Fuquay-Varina High School, had been visiting relatives in Florida when he vanished. His mother, Bridgette Pelletier, posted on social media that she was “living every parent’s worst nightmare, trying to find the strength to give him the goodbye he deserves.” She also requested privacy for the family, which includes Giovanni’s four younger siblings, as they make final arrangements.
The remains were discovered by a private investigation group the family enlisted, according to the outlet. The sheriff’s office reported that the body was too decomposed for an immediate positive identification. Authorities said there were no immediate signs of foul play, but an autopsy and toxicology tests — expected to take six months — will determine the cause and manner of death.
Retired FBI Special Agent Frank Brostrom told ABC11 that investigators will examine “evidence to possibly gain from his body, from the point of him getting out of the car to where his body was found, finding evidence, DNA evidence. How did he die? What’s the cause and manner of death?”
Giovanni’s last known interactions remain under analysis. Twenty minutes after getting into a car with his cousins, he sent an ominous text to his mother asking for help, as previously reported by BET. His cousins told investigators he was acting erratically and had pulled a knife before leaving the vehicle on the side of the road.
Brostrom said, “Maybe he had some kind of episode and panicked, ran out of the car, and, you know, fell into the water somehow. It just sounds very hokey that that would be the situation, but the fact that he called asking for help several times with different family members is something that they really are probably focusing on.”
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