TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA/WNCN) —A body found near a Florida retention pond is confirmed to be that of a teenager who went missing last week while visiting family.
According to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, preliminary evidence collected from the scene has identified the body as 18-year-old Giovanni Pelletier. The teen’s family also confirmed the identification on social media.
Pelletier, of Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, was last seen walking away from a vehicle along Interstate 75 in Manatee County on Aug. 1, prompting a statewide search for the teen.
On Friday, law enforcement located the body in a retention pond at the southbound off-ramp of I-75 and State Road 70.
Pelletier was visiting Florida to meet up with “his father’s side of the family,” Jeremy Brown, the teen’s stepfather, told Nexstar’s WFLA. He was excited to go, but texted his mother, Bridgette Pelletier, shortly after leaving with his cousins.
“He was picked up by three cousins that came from Mims, [Florida],” volunteer and licensed private investigator Shelley Croft explained to WFLA while the search for Pelletier was ongoing. “He wanted to kind of get to know that side of the family that he does not know. They had only communicated via text messages and FaceTime calls. They came down here to Englewood, picked him up, and 21 minutes after he left the home, he sent his mom a text message that said ‘Mom help me.’”
Those cousins told Charlotte County deputies that as they were heading north on Interstate 75, Giovanni began acting erratically before getting out of the car and walking away. They said this happened in the area near State Road 70 in Manatee County.
Later that night, Giovanni texted his mother and other family members. His cellphone and backpack were ultimately located in the same area he had last been seen.
“I am living every parent’s worst nightmare, trying to find the strength to give him the goodbye he deserves,” Bridgette wrote on Facebook, according to Nexstar’s WNCN.
An autopsy is scheduled for Sunday. The cause of death is still unknown.
WNCN’s Starletta Watson and Rodney Overton contributed to this report.
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