Brian Laundrie Lookalike Ambushed By Armed Feds As He Napped On Appalachian Trail

A hiker taking a nap along the Appalachian Trail had a rude awakening late last month.

“Severin Beckwith and Anna Brettmann, a young couple from Ithaca, New York, have been hiking from Georgia to Virginia on the Appalachian Trail since late September,” The New Yorker wrote. “In western North Carolina, after a few days of hard rain and little sleep, they decided to take a break from the woods. A shuttle delivered them to the Lodge at Fontana Village Resort, a rustic retreat two miles off the trail, where they ate lunch and lay down for a midday nap. Knocking awoke them. There was a muffled voice outside their door. It burst open before Beckwith could unlock it.”

From the New Yorker:

“Next thing I see is a bunch of guys with riot shields with ‘U.S. Marshals’ written on them,” Beckwith said. “Handguns pointed at my face.” Brettmann was still in bed. A marshal helped her get dressed as they handcuffed Beckwith, still in his underwear, and took him out to the hallway. He had a hunch why this was happening. “I really hoped I was right,” he said.

He was right. Beckwith — who sports a shaved head and a beard — looks a lot like Brian Laundrie, the fiance of Gabby Petito, whose body was found in a Wyoming park last month.

Beckwith was handcuffed and fingerprinted.

The Marshals “suggested that he shave his beard — which he did but ‘immediately regretted,’ he said, ‘because I have much less of a chin than Laundrie does.’ They told the couple that they now had a good story to tell. Then they left,” the New Yorker reported.

Laundrie reportedly flew home to Florida after his infamous fight with his girlfriend in Utah — one that drew law enforcement wearing body cameras — then rejoined her just before she vanished.

Petito, 22, was last seen at a Wyoming restaurant on August 27, while Laundrie, 23, returned home alone in her van on September 1. Petito’s body was found September 19 at a campsite at the Teton-Bridger National Forest in Wyoming. A coroner declared her death a homicide and Laundrie has disappeared.

A Florida engineer who claimed to have talked to Laundrie on the Appalachian Trail told The New York Post on Oct. 5 that he will meet with the FBI.

But Dog the Bounty Hunter and his team had been searching for the fugitive in the swampy Carlton Reserve near Sarasota,