Sheriff says no foul play in North Carolina teen's death

Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells said there are no signs of foul play in the death of 18-year-old Giovanni Pelletier. 

Pelletier was reported missing Aug. 1, and his body was found in a retention pond near Interstate 75 and State Road 70 on Aug. 8. 

The sheriff held a press conference Aug. 19 to lay out a timeline of events and play camera footage of Pelletier the night he went missing. 

The last video, taken from a camera at the Lowe's in the Creekwood Crossing plaza off State Road 70, shows Pelletier running down an embankment that leads to the pond where his body was later found.

“There’s no one chasing him,” Wells said. “What we don’t know is what happened when he hit that pond. I’m not going to speculate. The death is undetermined.” 

The morning of Aug. 1, Pelletier was traveling from Englewood to Brevard County on the east coast with a cousin and two friends to visit family. 

The witnesses in the car told police that Pelletier smoked marijuana and began “tripping, telling them, ‘I am a demon, and I will wreck this car.’”

They reported that Pelletier said he would kill them and then exited the car. They said they saw Pelletier running in the northbound lane of I-75, and he was almost hit by a truck. 

Wells reported that the medical examiner found no evidence to indicate Pelletier's body suffered any kind of trauma. 

Cell phone data shows that Pelletier's cousin and two friends were two miles away when he was running down the embankment.

Traces of marijuana were found in the car, but the toxicology report has not been completed to know if any other drugs were involved. Wells said a request was made to rush the results, but even still, the report will likely take at least two months to come back.