A Utah park ranger has revealed she warned Gabby Petito her relationship with Brian Laundrie seemed ‘toxic’ after responding to the ‘possible domestic assault’ incident involving the couple back on August 12.
Melissa Hulls, the visitor and resource protection supervisor at Arches National Park in Moab, said she was ‘imploring with [Petito] to reevaluate the relationship’ but that the 22-year-old didn’t understand ‘how big a deal this was.’
Hulls said she had responded to a call stemming from an argument between Petito and Laundrie and arrived to find the couple pulled over by a police officer inside the park.
Police bodycam footage was released last week of the encounter showing a sobbing Petito telling officers they had ‘been fighting all morning’ before cops determined she was the ‘primary aggressor.’
The initial 911 call, released Monday, has since revealed a witness first reported seeing the ‘gentleman was slapping the girl’.
A forensic psychiatrist has now spoken out to say the footage of the August 12 incident – 13 days before Petito was last heard from alive – raises ‘red flags’ and suggests she was ‘scared’ of her boyfriend.
A body matching Petito’s description was recovered from Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming Sunday. Meanwhile, Laundrie is now missing with his parents telling cops Friday they had not seen him in three days.
A Utah park ranger has revealed she warned Gabby Petito her relationship with Brian Laundrie seemed ‘toxic’ after she responded to the ‘possible domestic assault’ incident involving the couple back on August 12. A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car in the footage
Petito and Laundrie together. In a chilling 911 call of the August 12 incident, obtained by FOX, a male caller reported a domestic abuse incident between the couple
Hulls told Deseret News the conversation she had with Petito on the scene of the domestic incident has echoed with her ever since.
‘I can still hear her voice. She wasn’t just a face on the milk carton, she was real to me,’ she said.
She said she can remember Petito sobbing in the back of the police cruiser.
‘I was probably more candid with her than I should’ve been,’ Hulls said.
She told Petito that her and Laundrie’s relationship had the markings of a ‘toxic’ one.
‘I was imploring with her to reevaluate the relationship, asking her if she was happy in the relationship with him, and basically saying this was an opportunity for her to find another path, to make a change in her life,’ she added.
In the audio, obtained by DailyMail.com, the male caller tells a Grant County sheriff that a ‘gentleman’ in a white van with a Florida license plate had slapped a girl in the vehicle before driving away.
The man also mentions the incident had happened ‘by Moonflower’ – likely referring to the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, where Laundrie and Petito stayed the night of August 11 and where they reportedly were seen having an explosive fight.
‘I’m right in the corner of Main Street by Moonflower and we are driving and I’d like to report a domestic dispute.
‘Florida with a white van – Florida license plate, white van,’ the man says before being interrupted by the officer, who asks him what he saw exactly.
‘They just drove off. They’re going towards Main Street.
‘They made a right onto Main Street from Moonflower. We drove by him, a gentleman was slapping the girl,’ the man continues.
‘He was slapping her?’ the sheriff asks.
‘Yes. And then we stopped. They ran down an up the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off,’ the man says as the audio ends.
Laundrie is seen in police bodycam with scratches on his face which he tells an officer were caused when Petito ‘was trying to get the keys from me’ and ‘hit me with her phone’
Shortly after the call, Petito and Laundrie were filmed in police bodycam footage when they were stopped by Moab Police.
In the video, an emotional Petito with tears streaming down her face tells officers she ‘was trying to get him [Laundrie] to stop telling [her] to calm down’ and admitting the couple had ‘been fighting all morning.’
The 911 call is the latest in a series of major developments in the case over the weekend.
On Sunday police found remains believed to be Petito’s at a campsite in Wyoming, just days after Laundrie ‘went missing’ from his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, where he returned upon Petito’s disappearance, using her van and refusing to talk to police.
Hulls said that these situations are never clear cut when you’re dealing with them in the moment.
‘Sometimes you get evidence and they don’t own up to it, and they’re just lying to your face and it’s unsafe, and you know that something more is going to happen if you let them go home together. That’s a much easier decision to arrest,’ she said.
‘With this one, I just don’t think she understood how big a deal this was.’
Authorities separated the couple.
Petito went in the van, Laundrie was taken to a hotel, and a few days later, they were back on the road, headed north to Salt Lake City.
After reviewing the footage from the scene, forensic psychologist Cohen told Fox Petito ‘doesn’t just look like someone who’s having a panic attack or who’s anxious’ but instead looks ‘scared’ and ‘overwhelmed’ in the footage.
‘She looks scared. She looks very overwhelmed,’ he said.
![Melissa Hulls (pictured) , the visitor and resource protection supervisor at Arches National Park in Moab, said she was 'imploring with [Petito] to reevaluate the relationship' but that the 22-year-old didn't understand 'how big a deal this was.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/09/21/13/48194475-10012075-image-a-3_1632226274064.jpg)
Melissa Hulls (pictured) , the visitor and resource protection supervisor at Arches National Park in Moab, said she was ‘imploring with [Petito] to reevaluate the relationship’ but that the 22-year-old didn’t understand ‘how big a deal this was.’
North Port Police released images of the campervan the couple were traveling across the US in after it was seized as part of the investigation
The impounded van is covered in stickers from the different places visited by the couple during their cross-country trip
‘She was emoting so much that it was very clear that there had been an incident and there had been a problem of some kind that she was struggling with.’
Cohen said it is difficult to know ‘how extensive the fight was’ but that ‘such an imbalance of the emotional state’ between the young couple ‘does raise a red flag’.
‘What we know is that when they were pulled over by the police, [Petito]was very upset, and they were both minimizing their argument. I think that’s clear,’ he said.
‘She appears to try to blame it on her OCD, and he talks about his muddy shoes. She also says she’s under a lot of stress.’
The psychologist cast doubt on the couple’s efforts to explain away the fight as caused by Petito’s OCD, insisting that the condition is ‘not a risk factor for violence.’
‘People with OCD are not violent. OCD is not a risk factor for violence. If there was an altercation between them, certainly OCD would not be fodder for something that would lead her to hurt him,’ he said.
‘It could cause an argument. If she does have OCD… he might get upset with her, or she might get upset with him, but people with OCD are not violent.’
Instead, Cohen suggested they may have been under the influence – something he said could lead them to ‘act irrationally’.
‘They’re going on a van trip cross-country. They’re in the desert. Those are some settings in which young people tend to use substances that can make them have an altered mental state,’ he said.
‘They can feel overwhelmed. They can have a bad trip. And it could lead them to act irrationally. It could also lead them to get into an altercation.’
Concerns over the contents of the bodycam have been echoed by former ‘America’s Most Wanted’ host John Walsh who said the footage ‘terrified’ him and depicted what he felt was ‘classic domestic abuse.’
Walsh told CNN Petito appeared ‘terrorized’ in the video, adding that it was then ‘chilling’ to later hear the 911 audio.
‘I looked at it with an FBI agent friend of mine and I was terrified,’ Walsh said.
‘We looked at it and I said, ‘This girl is terrorized. This is classic domestic abuse.
‘He terrorized her not to tell the cops that he was the aggressor, he was the slapper and the puncher… She was terrified.’
A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2
Cohen told Fox he also thinks Laundrie’s parents could be in denial about the case after they prevented law enforcement from interviewing their son last week – before reporting him missing Friday and saying they hadn’t seen him in three days.
‘I think that parental instincts tend to be very strong. There’s also a parental tendency to not see the worst in one’s own children, and so when you find those two tendencies, there’s a tendency to deny that one’s child could have been involved in such a crime and to protect them at all costs,’ the psychiatrist said.
FBI agents stormed the Laundrie family’s home on Monday and removed his parents from the house while declaring the area a crime scene moments after authorities called off a search of a nearby nature reserve, saying they have ‘exhausted all avenues.’
Forensic psychologist Dr. Ziv Ezra Cohen (above) said the police bodycam of the incident shows Petito looking ‘scared’
The FBI tweeted on Monday that it ‘is executing a court-authorized search warrant today at the Laundrie residence in North Port, FL relevant to the Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito investigation.’
‘No further details can be provided since this is an active and ongoing investigation,’ the FBI added.
Steven Berolino, an attorney for the family, told ABC 7 that the family went looking for Laundrie on Wednesday.
They found his Ford Mustang, which had a police note on it demanding that the vehicle be removed from the area.
The family initially left the car there so that Brian Laundrie could drive it back, but they returned on Thursday to retrieve it, according to Bertolino.
The next day, the family filed a missing persons report.
Hulls has said she’s been unable to revisit the footage from that evening since hearing that the FBI recovered a body in Wyoming consistent with the descriptions of Petito.
‘I honestly haven’t looked at my body camera footage for that night. It’s hard to think about now because I feel like I could’ve said more to help her,’ she said.
‘It’s hard not to second-guess myself, and wish I said more, or wish I had found the right words to make her believe that she deserved more.’
According to the document, cops were called to a local business in Moab, Utah on August 12, after a witness reported seeing the couple ‘arguing over a phone’ outside their van
There have been questions asked regarding the stop: people wondering why Petito was seen as the aggressor and Laundrie the victim.
Hulls claims that in hindsight, in can be a lot easier to judge than in the moment.
‘It’s easy to say that when you can break down a video, minute by minute, and judge it, versus being in the moment where we saw minor injuries and two people that were apologetic.’
‘It’s not that we didn’t think he was manipulative, but we have to worry about the safety, and not the psychology of it,’ she said.
‘We have to go by the facts that we were faced with at the time, and not let our emotions drive the decision.’
She admits, however, that she could’ve implored Petito to use this moment to reexamine the relationship more.
‘It’s hard not to think that I could’ve done something more, or found the exact words to make her change her life right then,’ she said.
‘There are so many circumstances where you wish it had gone a certain way, and if you get stuck with the ‘would have, could have, should have,’ you can’t do this job.
‘You got to learn from it and keep going, otherwise you’re not going to be help for the next Gabby.’
In his report, responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins said he pulled the couple over as they were driving towards Arches National Park and noticed Gabby ‘crying uncontrollably’ in the passenger seat
Cops received reports of a possible domestic violence incident near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12
In the bodycam footage from Moab officers, Petito says she suffers from OCD and anxiety, with both her and Laundrie saying she was stressed because of the YouTube blog they were working on to document the doomed cross-country trip.
Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Petito ‘was trying to get the keys from me’ and ‘hit me with her phone’.
He later said she was angry with him because of his dirty feet. When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies ‘I guess’ and makes a grabbing motion on her chin.
Laundrie admits he ‘pushed her’ during the altercation.
The cops determine Petito was ‘the primary aggressor’ and say they are separating the couple for the night.
The couple had been traveling around the country in their camper van since early July and were visiting Moab, Utah when they got into an altercation, an incident report reveals.
The report says officers received reports of a ‘possible domestic violence’ incident involving the couple near the Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab on August 12 around 4:30pm.
The report, released by the Moab Police Department on Wednesday, documented that the couple admitted they had been going through ‘issues’ over the last couple days.
Last Thursday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said that it was Laundrie’s ‘constitutional right’ not to speak with law enforcement.
Petito was reported missing on September 11 after her family hadn’t heard from her in 13 days.
She last spoke to her mother on the phone on August 25 and her last known location was Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Laundrie returned to their home in North Port, Florida, alone on September 1 in the couple’s camper van – which has now been seized by police – 10 days before she was reported missing.
On Wednesday police officially named Laundrie a ‘person of interest’ in her mystery disappearance and said he was refusing to cooperate with their investigation.
Laundrie’s attorney released a statement saying he was not speaking to police or making a statement ‘on the advice of counsel’ because ‘intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this.’
Petito’s father Joe told Fox & Friends First last week the focus must be ‘to make sure we get my daughter home first’ and then ‘we’ll start worrying about Brian’ later.
‘I don’t care what happens to him right now,’ said Petito’s father.
‘That can’t be my primary focus if he’s going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter’s out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don’t give two craps about him.’
‘I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.’
Joe said learning about the August 12 incident and Laundrie being named a person of interest, had left him feeling ‘it’s not what you thought it was.’
However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.
‘It’s not what you thought it was,’ he said.
‘August 12, the person of interest… I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don’t have Gabby.
‘I want to care about finding my daughter first. That’s my first objective.’
Nicole Schmidt, of Long Island, New York, gave a teary-eyed interview to reporters in Bohemia on Monday afternoon about her daughter Gabby Petitio, who has been missing since August 24. Schmidt tells DailyMail.com that on September 10 she texted Brian and his mother Roberta trying to get in touch with Gabby, but neither replied
The bodycam footage shows an officer reporting that the driver of a vehicle ahead is showing ‘obscure driving’, driving 45mph in a 15mph road, and is ‘possibly intoxicated.’
He says the vehicle has bumped a curb and puts the sirens on.
The officer then gets out the vehicle and approaches the couple’s white camper van, which they have pulled over.
Petito, who is crying, is seen sitting in the the passenger seat and Laundrie is driving.
The officer asks them to turn off the vehicle and asks their names and ‘What’s going on? Why are you crying?’
‘We’ve just been fighting this morning, some personal issues,’ says Petito.
Laundrie says it was ‘a long day’ of camping yesterday.
Schmidt said they’d been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island. ‘They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating’
The officer asks Petito to step out of the vehicle and takes her down the road, separating the couple to ask her what happened.
‘I have OCD and I was just cleaning and straightening…,’ she says, while sobbing.
‘And I was apologizing to him and saying I’m sorry that I am so mean as sometimes I am so mean because I have OCD and get really frustrated.
‘Not like mean towards him, I guess my vibe is like in a bad mood, and I said I’m sorry I’m in a bad mood I am stressed I had so much work.’
She tells the officer they are traveling the country and trying to ‘build a blog’.
Brian Laundrie’s parents Christopher and Roberta refused to let police speak with their son. He returned to their home on North Port,Florida on September 1
‘We have been fighting all morning and he wouldn’t let me in the car before,’ she says.
When the officer asks why he wouldn’t let her in the car, she says ‘he told me needed to calm down’ adding that he ‘really stresses me out’ and that it’s ‘been a rough morning.’
The officer tells Petito she is ‘not in any trouble’ and escorts her to the back of the cop car so she can ‘take a breath’ and have ‘a few minutes.’
The officer then asks Laundrie to step out the vehicle and asks him what has happened.
Gabby set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with boyfriend Brian Laundrie in the couple’s 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16 at Zion National Park
‘She gets really worked up sometimes and I try to distance myself from it,’ Laundrie says.
Laundrie also mentions her work on the blog and that ‘she got worked up.’
He goes on to say they had a ‘little squabble’ which started in the coffee shop ‘when I moved our food around’ and ‘I’m dirty, and I can’t change being dirty, I got sand in my flip flops and stuff.’
The officer asks about the scratches on his face, with Laundrie explaining that there was an altercation involving her cellphone and their keys.
‘She had her cellphone in her hand, that’s why I was pushing her away,’ he says.
Above is the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, where Brian Laundrie returned in the couple’s van without Gabby after their trip
‘Coz I had the keys… I said let’s take a breather and let’s not go anywhere. Let’s calm down a minute.’
He adds: ‘And she had her phone, and was trying to get the keys from me.
‘I know I shouldn’t have pushed her but I was just trying to push her away to say take a minute step back and breathe. And she hit me with her phone.’
At one point, officers check Laundrie’s hands, arm and torso, noting scratch marks on his arm.
Gabby’s family lashed out at the Laundries in a statement Tuesday. ‘Brian is refusing to tell Gabby’s family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.’
A second officer is then seen talking to Petito who is sitting in the back of the cop car.
‘Did he hit you?’ the officer asks.
‘I guess,’ she replies, becoming tearful.
When the officer asks where Laundrie hit her, she clasps her chin in a grabbing motion.
‘He like, did that with his hand,’ she says.
Much of the audio is unclear at this point.
Police on Tuesday revealed they responded to an ‘incident’ involving 22-year-old ‘van-life woman’ Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, two weeks before she was last seen
Petito tells the officers she suffers from ‘anxiety’ and that Laundrie ‘gets frustrated a lot’.
She insists neither of them have been drinking because ‘we don’t drink’.
Petito admits she was ‘yelling at him’, then said ‘you’re an idiot” and made a punching motion.
She is later seen in the back of the car with a distressed expression on her face and her hands clasped in front of her on her lap.
‘Were you attempting to cause him physical pain or impairment? Is that what you were attempting to do to him?’ an officer asks.
Petito, who is looking at the officer, replies no.
‘What were you attempting to do?’ the cop asks.
A tearful Petito tells cops she has OCD and anxiety and that she was stressed because she was trying to ‘build a blog’
Laundrie shows cops his arms which they say note scratches on, before officers determine Petito was the ‘primary aggressor’
When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend hit her, she replies ‘I guess’ and gestures to her chin. Petito admits he ‘pushed her’ during the altercation
‘What was the reason behind the slapping and stuff? What was it you were attempting to accomplish by the slapping?’
‘I was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down,’ Petito says, as her face crumples in tears.
The officer replies to her that ‘it doesn’t sound good.’
Later in the footage, the officer is seen telling Petito he will be keeping her and Laundrie apart for the night.
The cops determine Petito was ‘the primary aggressor’ and say they are separating the couple (pictured together) for the night
‘I am separating you two tonight, okay?’ the officer is heard telling Petito.
The 22-year-old nods through tears in response and mouths ‘okay.’
‘I want you guys both to be tonight, away from each other,’ the officer says.
‘Relax, breathe, because there’s no need to be crying now,’ he tells Petito.
Petito nods and wipes tears from her eyes.
‘I understand that this can feel like a nightmare,’ the officer says.
‘But you have come out as the golden flower on top.’
Emotional new police bodycam footage has revealed the moment Utah cops asked missing ‘van-life’ woman Gabby Petito why she slapped her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip
Laundrie shows the officers his hands during the incident on August 12 – two weeks before his girlfriend vanished
The cops are also seen talking in the footage about the accounts given by Petito, Laundrie and the witness who reported the incident to police, where they agree she was ‘the primary aggressor.’
Laundrie says he doesn’t want to pursue any charges but the cops say they have no choice but to separate the pair for the night.
According to the police incident report, a witness, identified only as Christopher, had reported seeing the pair ‘arguing over a phone.’
In his account, one of the responding officers Eric Pratt, wrote that ‘all three individuals’ – Gabby, Laundrie, and the witness – gave ‘a similar and consistent story, consisting of the basic idea that the driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female.’
Pratt said no one reported ‘that the male struck the female’ and that both Gabby and Laundrie said ‘they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn’t wish to see anyone charged with a crime.’
The report reveals Laundrie told officers that he had tried to create distance between the two by telling Gabby ‘to go take a walk to calm down’, but ‘she didn’t want to be separated from [him] and began slapping him.’
‘He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his driver’s door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off,’ Pratt states.
The bystander who reported the incident told cops a similar version of events but noted that he saw ‘what appeared to him as Gabrielle hitting Brian in the arm and then climbing through the driver’s window’ after she appeared to be locked out.
The image above shows FBI agents leading Chris and Roberta Laundrie out of their North Port, Florida home on Monday. The Laundries are the parents of Brian Laundrie, who has been missing and is considered a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance of van-lifer Gabby Petito. The body believed to be that of Petito was found in Wyoming on Sunday
It appeared at one point that FBI officers were looking for Brian Laundrie at the house. Five FBI agents at the side of the property searched a plastic garden lidded container
FBI agents stormed his family’s home on Monday and removed his parents from the house while declaring the area a crime scene moments after authorities called off a search of a nearby nature reserve, saying they have ‘exhausted all avenues.
A second officer, Daniel Scott Robbins, later located the couple – who had already left the scene by then – driving in their Ford Transit van towards Arches National Park and pulled them over.
He said he noticed Gabby ‘crying uncontrollably’ in the passenger seat as he approached the vehicle and asked to speak to her outside.
The report was redacted to conceal sensitive information but suggests Gabby told police she and Laundrie became embroiled in an altercation that was fueled by mental health issues.
‘Gabrielle told me that she suffers from [redacted] with [redacted],’ Robbins wrote.
‘Because of her [redacted] and [redacted], combined with little arguments she and Brian had been having that day, she was struggling with her mental health, which led to the incident that was reported to law enforcement.’
A memorial cross in a cleared area of rocks next to the Spread Creek is believed to be a tribute to Gabby Petito
He added that at ‘no point’ in his investigation did Gabby ‘stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands.’
Robbins said that he had seen Petito and Laundrie’s van traveling 45mph in a 15mph zone while he tried to catch up to them earlier and activated his lights to initiate a traffic stop.
But upon doing so, he noticed the vehicle abruptly swerve to the right and the rear right wheels hit the curb before finally coming to a stop.
Robbins said Petito later told him that this was a result of her trying to get Laundrie’s ‘attention to notice me as I was behind them with my lights on’ and that she did not intend to hurt him.
Petito is seen in shots from her Instagram page in a photo from late July
But during his conversation with the cop shortly after, Laundrie said that when he noticed police lights flashing behind them, he thought Gabby ‘had grabbed the wheel of the van and pulled it, causing the van to hit the curb.’
The report says Laundrie told the officer both he and Gabby suffer from the same problem and that issues between the two ‘had been building over the last few days.’
‘This in turn, caused them to argue more than usual,’ Robbins wrote. ‘Brian explained he and Gabrielle have been traveling together for the last four or five months.
‘That time spent created emotional strain between them and increased the number of arguments.’
A sign leads the way to Spread Creek Campground in Wyoming where a body ‘consistent with the description’ of Petito was found by the FBI
Laundrie went on to describe the events leading up to the altercation, saying he and Gabby had gotten into an argument near Main Street and he tried to create space between them ‘so they could calm their emotions.’
He said he then got into their van and that Gabby went into a ‘manic state.’
‘Brian said Gabrielle, thinking he was going to leave her in Moab without a ride, went to slap him,’ the report states.
He then pushed her away in an attempt to dodge the hit, but still sustained minor visible scratches to his face.
A makeshift memorial dedicated to Petito is located near City Hall in North Port, Florida
When questioned about the scratches to his right arm, Brian told Robbins they must’ve happened when Gabby was trying to alert him that they were being pulled over by police, the report states.
‘This, however, was not consistent with Gabrielle’s statement, further suggesting her confused and emotional state,’ the officer wrote.
Robbins later concluded that he did not believe the situation ‘escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis.’
According to officer, both expressed a ‘desire to remain together and ultimately agreed to be separated’ with Brian staying in a hotel room and Gabby in the van until the following day.
Members of the Teton County Search and Rescue team comb the Spread Creek river and its tributaries for Petito
A statement provided by a second responding officer, Eric Pratt, said he believed the initial witness reported that it was Laundrie who had ‘assaulted’ Petito.
‘It wasn’t clear, but I believe it was reported the male had been observed to have assaulted the female,’ he wrote.
Laundrie was then assessed to be ‘at low risk of danger or harm as a result of his proximity’ to Gabby and no charges were filed, Pratt wrote.
On Tuesday, Moab Chief of Police Bret Edge confirmed that cops had responded to an incident involving the pair but they later ‘determined that insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges,’ Fox News reported.
Photos of the van in question that Petito and Laundrie traveled around in were posted by the North Port Police Department
He did not disclose additional details at the time.
Addressing reports of the incident on Wednesday, Gabby’s mother, Nichole Schmidt told DailyMail.com: ‘It’s irrelevant.
‘Two people traveling together with each other 24 hours a day, it’s not going to be perfect, it was an argument, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.’
The family released a statement Wednesday condemning Laundrie as the ‘one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help.’
Laundrie is still missing himself and refusing to cooperate with any investigations
‘The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton – Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby’s 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen.
‘Brian is refusing to tell Gabby’s family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.
‘The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not ‘remain in the background’ but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located?’ they said.
‘The Schmidt and Petito family implore Brian to come forward and at least tell us if we are looking in the right area.’
Petito, who had been traveling across the country with Laundrie in their camper van since July 2, was last known to have been visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on August 25
Meanwhile, Laundrie’s attorney released a statement saying he is ‘not speaking on the matter’ and ‘will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.’
‘Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito’s absence,’ the statement read.
‘In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that ‘any statement made will be used against you’ is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito’s disappearance.
‘As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter.
Laundrie was named a person of interest by police last Wednesday, who said he ‘has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.’
‘I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a ‘person of interest’ in this matter.
‘This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.’
Laundrie was named a person of interest by police Wednesday, who said he ‘has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.’
Petito, who had been traveling across the country with Laundrie in their camper van since July 2, was last known to have been visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on August 25.
Laundrie, who drove to Florida in the van he shared with Petito, has since hired a lawyer and refused to tell Petito’s family where she was last seen
She was reported missing by her mother on September 11, two weeks after she had last spoken on to her on the phone, and ten days after Laundrie returned to his home in North Port, Florida without her.
Laundrie, who drove to Florida in the van he shared with Petito, has since hired a lawyer and refused to tell Petito’s family where she was last seen.
Schmidt sent her daughter’s boyfriend and his family desperate texts looking for her but was ignored.
Schmidt told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that on September 10 she reached out to Brian and his mother Roberta Laundrie trying to reach her daughter after she had not heard from her.
Petito’s mother has said that Brian’s sister Cassie is the only member of Brian’s family who has spoken to authorities
‘I texted Brian’s mom that I was trying to get in touch with Gabby. I also texted Brian. I got no replies,’ Schmidt said.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ she said. ‘I felt something was off and I needed to get her reported missing immediately.’
She went to report Gabby missing later that day but police initially blew her off. The next day, she was allowed to file a report with the Suffolk County police department.
Brian’s family have since refused to let authorities interview their son when the van that the couple had traveled in before she disappeared was seized from their property late on Saturday night.
Schmidt said that Gabby and Brian had been engaged, but decided to call it off and go back to just dating because they felt they were too young for marriage.
Schmidt said Brian’s sister Cassie is the only member of Brian’s family who has spoken to authorities.
She said she can’t understand why neither Brian nor his parents have reached out to her in the aftermath of her daughter’s disappearance.
‘It’s a very mysterious situation. We don’t understand why he’s doing this. Everybody’s assuming the worst and thinking he’s guilty of this. But I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe she’s just in need of help out there and that everybody needs to keep searching.’
Schmidt described how Brian’s parents had been warm and welcoming to Gabby during their relationship. She recalled a time when his mother even knitted her future daughter-in-law gifts for Christmas.
Schmidt added that she can’t understand why neither Brian nor his parents have reached out to her in the aftermath of her daughter’s disappearance
‘She loved her like a daughter,’ Schmidt said. ‘As far as I knew they were all very caring and treated her like one of the family. His mom was so excited about the engagement.’
The distraught mother also clarified that Gabby and Brian had been engaged, but decided to call it off and go back to just dating because they felt they were too young for marriage.
‘I think they kind of put that on hold just because they felt it was a little fast. They were excited at first, but then they were like, let’s just wait, we’re very young. So they were really just boyfriend and girlfriend,’ she said.
She said they’d been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island.
Gabby’s mother said they’d been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island and went to high school together
‘They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating,’ she said.
In light of the disappearance, Schmidt says she’s now viewing everything under a new lens.
‘Maybe the relationship wasn’t what I thought,’ she said.
Schmidt has recently seen photos in the news of Brian’s father performing yard work.
‘If they cared about her, they would want to find her,’ she said. ‘Why aren’t you out helping find her?’
The pair were heading from Ogden, Utah to Yellowstone National Park, just north of Grand Teton
‘I don’t want to seem accusatory,’ she said. ‘It’s confusing, my mind is turning right now.’
She’s also questioning Brian’s trip back to Florida in August to help his father move their things into a storage unit. She wonders why it was necessary to move Gabby’s things during their road trip and what became of her stuff.
‘Where are her things?’ she asked.
Asked why Brian chose to lawyer up, she replied, ‘You know I wish I knew that answer, why.’
Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah
‘I know that’s the reason this story is so sought after is because it’s odd. The police have said it’s very odd. We don’t know what’s going on, and where is my daughter. I just want to find her.’
Gabby, who grew up in Blue Point, New York, was last seen on August 24 checking out of a hotel with Brian in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The following day she made her final call to her family, telling them that she and Brian had traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Her last Instagram post on August 25, shows her visiting the Monarch Wall in Ogden, Utah with the caption ‘Happy Halloween’. The pair were heading from Ogden to Yellowstone National Park, just north of Grand Teton.