More eyewitness accounts into some of the final sightings of Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie together (and not) before her tragic death have been revealed, and they’re giving us even more insight into their final days.
In a newly surfaced statement obtained by Fox13, a witness, identified only as Chris, discusses seeing the couple during their fight — the one that got them stopped by police and recorded on bodycam.
Chris first corroborates what we’ve already heard, saying he saw them in the middle of “some sort of dispute” near the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah, on August 12. However, he adds a new detail — that they were “aggressively” arguing over a phone. He also thinks Brian may have taken Gabby’s away from her. That is very inneresting indeed considering there’s been speculation over her “odd” final text messages and Instagram posts.
Related: Was Brian Spotted On Video?
Chris admitted it was “hard to tell if they were sort of play fighting, but from my point of view, something definitely didn’t seem right” but it seemed like Laundrie was trying to confiscate her phone and maybe even leave her there. He also added that another person dialed 911 — and as we already know, a call from another witness claimed the boyfriend was “slapping” and hitting the YouTuber.
Chris also confirms something that’s been a point of controversy: that Gabby struck Brian. He says the 23-year-old was attempting to stop his fiancée from entering the van, so she started “punching him in the arm” to get back inside before eventually climbing over the driver’s side and into the passenger’s seat. He then heard the 22-year-old vlogger express:
“Why do you have to be so mean?”
OK, we have to freeze and rewind for a moment because something is not adding up here. In a viral bodycam video released last week, a visibly distraught Gabby described the scuffle between her and Laundrie, saying he first tried locking her out of the car in order for her to “calm down.” But she told officers on the scene:
“He really stresses me out. This is a rough morning. I don’t know, it’s just some days I have really bad OCD and I was just cleaning and straightening up and I was apologizing to him.”
Gabby then added:
“I’m sorry that I’m so mean.”
She completely turned the entire thing around on herself and defended Laundrie! She even used the same words, calling herself “so mean”!
Obviously we weren’t there and cannot say with certainty what happened. But we do know that that’s something all too common in domestic violence situations, where the victim will end up apologizing to the abuser. Is that what happened here? Is that what police responded to?
Because despite multiple witnesses coming forward to say that she was clearly the victim in the situation, police ended up dismissing the entire ordeal as nothing more than a “mental health crisis” and protected Laundrie instead by taking him to a hotel for the night.
And as we know, she disappeared weeks later and then was found dead in Wyoming.
We can’t help but wonder if police had responded differently, this whole story could have turned out less tragic…
Meanwhile, another witness, Jessica Schultz, claimed in a series of TikTok videos that she saw Laundrie on August 26 completely alone, detailing:
“So I saw Brian Laundrie parking his van August 26 at Spread Creek. So I had already reported to the FBI what I had seen. And I wasn’t 100 per cent sure, but now that there is dashcam footage of the van where I saw it, I’m 100 per cent certain that I did see him parking his van. And he was very kind of awkward and confused. And it was just him. There was no Gabby.”
She says she took particular note of whether it was a couple or a “solo dude” — she, too, is a van-lifer and was interested in meeting kindred spirits. She continued:
“So it was a solo dude, as far as I could see. Unless she was in the back somewhere. But when I pulled up he was driving still and hadn’t yet pulled over. So I was like, hey, what are you going to do? Are you going to let me pass because it’s only one car width of a road. And he kind of pulled over like half way, and made me drive half out into the road to go around him. So I thought it was just really weird. And for a timeline, it was parked on the 26th, I believe.”
Then, while camping with some of her friends at Spread Creek between August 22 to August 29, the van-life vlogger realized the vehicle was stopped at an undesignated parking spot in the area and never got removed by park rangers during that time:
“I noticed it particularly because I had seen it trying to park. And also because it wasn’t actually parked in a designated spot. The Spread Creek camping area is a series of designated spots and you’re not supposed to camp outside those spots, and this van was not in a real spot, so I figured that he would get booted by the people who patrol the area. But the van was there for several days and nights and it did not get booted.”
But that’s not the strangest part of the situation. Jessica then claimed that Brian seemingly had abandoned the van for several days, saying:
“The weirdest part about it was that there was no indication that there was anybody actually at the van. Usually small van people have their doors open, they’re outside, they have a hammock, something. But we didn’t see any signs of actual life at the van.”
She is not the first person to notice that Brian ditched the van. A YouTube couple noticed the empty vehicle on August 27, too. Take a look at the TikTok clips (below):
@jessica.over.yonder I saw Brian Laundrie parking his van #gabbypetito #findgabby
@jessica.over.yonder Guess this is part 2 #gabbypetito #findgabby
It appears that Jessica’s information proved to be a big help in finding Gabby’s body, as she told the San Francisco Chronicle that the FBI thanked her for providing an important clue in the case. She said the agent told her:
“I’ve talked to hundreds of people, but you guys are the ones that really tipped us off to the right place, so thank you. We’re triumphant — we were right and we led them in the right direction. But then, of course, it’s not something you like to be right about. It’s been emotionally exhausting for sure.”
The whole thing truly becomes more and more chilling the more we find out. Thoughts on the latest witness details, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments (below).
[Image via Gabby Petito/Instagram]
The post Witnesses Who Saw Gabby Petito & Brian Laundrie Come Forward With New Accounts: 'Something Definitely Didn't Seem Right' appeared first on Perez Hilton.
