BRADENTON, FL — Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells released surveillance video footage on Tuesday showing some of the last known moments of 18-year-old Giovanni Pelletier’s life. His body was discovered on Aug. 8 in a retention pond off Interstate 75. (Watch the video footage below.)
During the Tuesday morning press conference, the sheriff outlined a timeline detailing when he went missing and the subsequent investigation.
The North Carolina teen went missing after departing from Englewood, where he had been staying with his mother and her fiancé, in the early hours of Aug. 1 to visit his paternal family in Brevard County, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office.
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Giovanni’s three cousins, who picked him up around 1:30 a.m., reported to investigators that he “began to act erratically” while they were driving north on I-75 before getting out of the vehicle and walking away near State Road 70 in Manatee County, stated the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in an earlier news release.
“Not long into the drive,” the four began smoking marijuana in the car, Wells explained.
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The cousins informed investigators that Giovanni started “tripping” and, after a stop along River Road for a bathroom break, began “acting out and raging” before re-entering the car, the sheriff reported.
His cousins recounted that the teen exclaimed, “‘I am the demon’ and I will wreck this car’ and … he will kill them all,” according to Wells.
Giovanni allegedly attempted to open the door while the vehicle was still in motion.
When they eventually pulled over, he took out a knife, which remained in its sheath, and then ran off along the southbound lanes of I-75. His cousins noticed him in the middle of the northbound lanes, where a truck almost struck him.
Moments later, he attempted to FaceTime his mother, Bridgette Pelletier, and sent her a text asking for help just before 2 a.m.
The cousins drove away and called their grandfather, then Bridgette around 2:30 a.m. to inform them of the situation. She was asleep and missed all calls and messages until after 6 a.m.
Those texts were the last communication Bridgette had with her son. She used GPS data from his phone to trace it and the backpack containing it to an area of I-75 near State Road 70.
As she approached the area, the phone’s location began moving, according to Wells.
Later, investigators discovered a truck driver had spotted the bag on the roadside and took it into Hillsborough County, the sheriff stated.
Shortly thereafter, the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office launched a missing person’s case for Giovanni.
On Aug. 4 and 5, the MCSO collaborated with Charlotte County deputies to search the area, including an “extensive search of the wooded regions on both sides of State Road 70,” Wells noted. During the second search, deputies used cadaver dogs, but did not find any evidence of Giovanni.
The search in that area was halted when Charlotte County detectives began to suspect “maybe he never made it to State Road 70,” Wells added.
A family friend searching along I-75 at State Road 70 days later, on Aug. 8, discovered the partially submerged body at the edge of the retention pond at around 3:15 p.m., according to a previous news release from MCSO.
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After the body was located, MCSO dispatched its entire Homicide Unit to investigate the scene. The Medical Examiner’s Office also processed the body, which exhibited no signs of trauma.
“There was no indication that he was shot, no indication that he was stabbed,” Wells reported. “At that moment, there was nothing that could assist us in determining the cause of death.”
Investigators returned to the scene on Aug. 9 with a drone to continue searching, and the dive team revisited the pond on Aug. 11.
The Medical Examiner’s Office could not identify Giovanni’s body, which was in a state of advanced decomposition, until the following Friday, through dental records and further forensic testing.
Pending toxicology results, which are expected to take several weeks, the cause of death remains undetermined, investigators stated.
Detectives have also focused on locating nearby surveillance video to ascertain what transpired with the teen as he made his way to the retention pond.
“We’re working to precisely identify where Giovanni exited the vehicle. That’s our primary goal,” Wells emphasized.
A Florida Department of Transportation camera recorded him crossing I-75 and climbing over a concrete barrier at State Road 70 on Aug. 1 at 2:19 a.m., MCSO reported.
Additional footage from a nearby Lowe’s captured Giovanni climbing over the barrier wall and sprinting down the embankment — at “an uncontrollable sprint” — towards the pond where his body was ultimately found, Wells noted.
Cell phone data indicated that his cousins were north of that location when Giovanni was captured on video.
“What we don’t know is what happened once he reached that pond,” Wells stated, emphasizing that the teen was alone. “They don’t search for him. They don’t follow him down that embankment.”
Watch the surveillance video footage of Giovanni following his departure from his cousins’ car in the early morning hours of Aug. 1:
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