A Brian Laundrie lookalike had a rude awakening when US Marshals on the hunt for the fugitive pulled their guns on him during a nap on the Appalachian Trail.
Written content from Yaron Steinbuch
Ithaca couple Severin Beckwith and Anna Brettmann were catching a few winks at the Lodge at Fontana Village Resort after lunch when they heard a knock and their door flew open, the New Yorker reported.
“Next thing I see is a bunch of guys with riot shields with ‘US Marshals’ written on them, handguns pointed at my face,” Beckwith told the mag.
The stunned hiker was promptly handcuffed as one of the feds helped Brettmann get dressed.
Beckwith, who resembles Landrie, the sole person of interest in his girlfriend Gabby Petito’s homicide, said he had a hunch why he was targeted on the Appalachian Trail, where tipsters have reported spotting the 23-year-old fugitive.
The doppelgänger told the New Yorker that one of the agents touched the side of his head and said the lookalike had a “notch in the upper part of my inner ear just like his.”
Making matters worse for Beckwith was that he and Brettmann — who had been hiking from Georgia to Virginia since late September — had booked their room with a credit card connected to an Empire State ID, the outlet said. Petito was originally from Long Island.
But Beckwith was quickly cleared because he didn’t have Laundrie’s telltale tattoos and he produced an ID that ruled him out as the wanted man.
Following the marshals’ advice, Beckwith shaved his beard — but he quickly regretted it “because I have much less of a chin than Laundrie does.”
Beckwith suspects that an employee at the Fontana Lake marina alerted authorities to his presence and even snapped his photo, which a marshal showed the guest after breaking down the door, according to the mag.
For their trouble, the lodge provided the couple with a free night’s stay and a complimentary breakfast.
“It was a buffet. We took as much as we could,” Beckwith said.
Last month, another Laundrie lookalike became an overnight TikTok sensation.
The unidentified man, who created the @notbrianlaundrie account, was seen doing laundry in one clip and asking other TikTokers for tips on how to avoid getting “attacked” for being confused with the fugitive.
Meanwhile, a woman who pioneered the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit told Fox News that the argument between Laundrie and Petito that people witnessed at a Wyoming eatery in August may hold the key to the woman’s fate.
“The restaurant incident … is the second and most important,” Ann Wolbert Burgess told Fox News about two incidents that she said raised red flags before Petito’s death.
The other incident was the domestic dispute called on Aug. 12 in Moab, Utah, said Burgess, author of “A Killer by Design: Murders, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal.”
“How she has to apologize for his behavior is something that’s kind of characteristic, and this probably enrages him even more because he wants to appear in a certain way,” Burgess said of the incident at Merry Piglets, a Jackson Hole restaurant.
Nina Celie Angelo, a photographer who witnessed the incident at the eatery, recently told Fox News Digital that she believed Laundrie was arguing with staff over the bill or about money. Read more from NYPost
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