Following intense pressure from family members, the sheriff of Manatee County on Aug. 19 shared further details about the death of Giovanni Pelletier, including a traffic camera video showing the teen headed down an enbankment near the retention pond where his body would be found a week after his disappearnce.
The case, which involved three different Florida jurisdictions, drew national attention as family members called the 18-year-old’s death suspicious and called on the FBI to take on the case in the search for answers.
Search parties had combed wooded areas and roadways in Brevard and Manatee counties in hopes of finding the former Mims resident. Pelletier, who was visiting Florida with his mother, went missing early Friday, Aug. 1, after he left Bradenton in Charlotte County — with cousins he did not know before the family arrived in Florida — to travel to Mims and meet relatives. His badly decomposed body was found Aug. 8, in a retention pond along State Road 70, by a family friend helping with the search.
Traffic cameras recorded the teen “sprinting” along an embankment in Manatee, said Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells in an Aug. 19 press conference.
“There’s no one chasing him. He’s by himself,” Wells said. “What we don’t know is what happened when he hit that pond. We don’t know. The death is undetermined. We know we don’t have anybody come down that embankment after him. He’s there, we believe, until he was located by that family friend on Friday, the 8th. We really don’t know what happened when he got into that pond.”
His investigators searched traffic cameras, pinged cellphones and interviewed witnesses who last saw Giovanni, Wells said.
“We really don’t know what happened when he got to the pond; we don’t have all the answers. We know that this is the last sighting of him that night,” he said.
Teen was born in Brevard; once lived in Mims
Giovanni Pelletier was born in Brevard County and lived in Mims until he was about 4 years old, family members told FLORIDA TODAY. His mother, Bridgette Pelletier, moved to North Carolina with Giovanni. The teen’s father, Antwyon Williams, is in state prison until 2053.
In July, Bridgette Pelletier came to Bradenton for a family trip, with Giovanni set on visiting his father’s relatives in Mims.
Wells said Giovanni had been in contact with his cousins in Mims on July 31 about being picked up to see his father’s family in Brevard County. The sheriff also said that Giovanni had talked about “smoking weed” with the cousins.
“I haven’t had a smoke in a while,” Giovanni texted his mother, Wells said.
Wells said that the cousins arrived in Charlotte County about 1:30 a.m. to pick up Giovanni in a white Malibu. On the road, the passengers — including Giovanni — began smoking marijuana, the sheriff said, adding that toxicology reports would help determine if other substances were involved.
A last message: ‘Help me’
During the ride, at 1:55 a.m., Giovanni texted his mother, writing “Help,” before sending another text a few minutes at 1:56 a.m. that said, “Help me,” the sheriff said.
After the car was stopped because Giovanni needed to use the bathroom, the teen began to act “enraged” once he was back in the car, one of the cousins told investigators.
It was at that point, cousins said, that Giovanni, carrying a knife, began “tripping” again, shouting that he was a “demon” and that he would “kill them all.”
He then attempted to open the door as the car was moving, they said, causing the driver to pull the car over on the east shoulder of State Road 70.
The teen then got of the car and ran off southbound in the night, leaving his backpack and cellphone. The cousins placed the items on the side of the road near the entrance ramp to I-75 and then at 2:26 a.m. to call their grandfather, Wells said. They continued north on I-75, with one cousin calling Giovanni’s mother at 2:27 a.m. There was no answer, the sheriff said.
One cousin called the teen’s mother again at 6:50 a.m., after they arrived in Mims. She answered and they told her what happened in the car and how Giovanni was behaving, Wells said. The mother then called the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office to help find her son.
“I guess they had given my son some weed and he started to freak out and wanted to get out of the car,” Brigette Pelletier told a 911 dispatcher.
Brigette Pelletier then traveled to try and find her son, using GPS to track his phone. It was located in Tampa with a truck driver who reported picking up the items along State Road 70.
The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office was then contacted to join the investigation, with Brevard deputies who searched the car in Mims finding no evidence of blood or other signs of foul play in the vehicle.
Charlotte and Manatee County deputies searched the area near the interstate with cadaver dogs and a helicopter overhead with no results.
A week after Giovanni’s disapperance, on Friday, Aug. 8, the teen’s body was found in the retention pond by a family friend who had joined search efforts.
“My son was recently found after a desperate search by OUR FAMILY ALONE, and we are still facing an active investigation into his death,” Brigette Pelletier said about her son’s disappearance and death in an Aug. 9 social media post.
An official cause of death has not been announced and the sheriff’s office said results of toxicology testing could take weeks. No charges have been filed, Wells said.
“Our prayers continue to go out to Brigette and the entire family as they go through this difficult time,” Wells said.
J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X, or Twitter: @JDGallop.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Manatee County sheriff: Traffic cameras show last known moments of Giovanni Pelletier
Reporting by J.D. Gallop, Florida Today / Florida Today
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