Gabby Petito Case: New Body Cam Video Provides Clues to Brian Laundrie Dispute
Police have released new body cam footage from an August traffic stop of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, which provides additional clues regarding the troubles and recent physical dispute between the late, formerly missing influencer and her fiancé.
Authorities discovered Gabby's body in a remote area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19, eight days after her parents reported her missing and 18 days after Brian returned alone from the couple's cross-country van road trip. Her death has been ruled a homicide.
Brian has been named a person of interest in her disappearance and on Sept. 17, his parents reported him missing to the FBI. A day earlier, police in Moab, Utah, released body camera video of an encounter that two officers had with Gabby, 22, and Brian, 23, during a traffic stop on Aug. 12, two weeks before she had last communicated with her family. The cops stopped the couple after receiving a 911 call from a concerned citizen who reported a "domestic dispute" between the two.
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In that footage, Gabby tearfully admits to slapping Brian. When an officer asks her whether the man hit her, muffled audio makes it difficult to hear her answer in full. On Friday, Oct. 1, the department released a new body cam video, in which the sound is clearer.
The video, posted on Fox News, shows an officer asking Gabby if Brian hit her. She responds, "I guess, I guess, yeah, but I hit him first...he like, grabbed my face, like, I guess...He didn't like, hit me in the face. He didn't, like, punch me in the face or anything."
She continues, in more audio made clear in the new video, "He, like, grabbed me with his nail, and I guess that's why it looks...definitely I was cut right here, [points to cheek] because I can feel it. When I touch it, it burns."
The 911 caller had told police that "the gentleman was slapping the girl," adding, "They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off."
Also in the new footage, a police officer tells Brian they received a call about a "male hitting a female and the two of them getting into a vehicle and taking off." He replies, "I pushed her away. She gets really worked up and when she does, she swings and she had her cell phone in her hand. So I was just trying to push her away."
In the previously released first body cam video of the traffic stop, Gabby cries while talking about her confrontation with Brian, who had small scratches on his face and arm. She says, "We've just been fighting this morning. Some personal issues." The cops told the couple to spend the night apart and they complied, with Gabby staying in the van and Brian spending the night in a hotel. No arrests were made.
According to CNN, the new video also provides additional audio from a witness speaking by phone to police. The person says they noticed that it seemed like Gabby and Brian "were sort of squabbling over a phone. I want to say that he was trying to grab her phone, and I'm not sure exactly why...I remember she sort of hit him a few times. And it wasn't, like, slugs in the face, but just kind of like two kids fighting."
In the previously released body cam video, Brian says, "She had her phone and was trying to get the keys from me. I was just trying to, I know I shouldn't push her. I was just trying to push her away to go, let's take a minute and step back and breathe and see, she got me with her phone."
In a report released by the Moab City Police Department, the responding police officer wrote that Brian "tried to create distance by telling Gabbie [sic] to take a walk to calm down, she didn't want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him. He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van," according to NBC News.
"No one reported that the male struck the female, both the male and the female reported they are in love and engaged and to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime," NBC News quoted the police report as saying. "There were no significant injures reported and both agreed that Gabbie [sic] suffers from serious anxiety."
On Monday, Sept. 27, the city of Moab said it was launching an investigation into its police department's handling of the dispute between the couple, CNN reported.
A day earlier, Gabby was laid to rest in a funeral in New York. Meanwhile, Brian remains missing, and though police have not named him a suspect in his fiancé's death, authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest after a federal grand jury indicted him for unauthorized use of a debit card after she died. In addition to the FBI and police, Dog the Bounty Hunter is also searching for him.
