Family of missing woman sends desperate message to her fiancé after police name him person of interest
FOX News
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The family of the Florida woman who vanished while on a cross-country trip in a converted camper with her boyfriend last month are growing impatient with his alleged refusal to provide police with "helpful details."
Gabrielle Petito’s extended family issued a statement Wednesday urging Brian Laundrie, who was named a person of interest in her disappearance, to help in the investigation, Fox 35 Orlando reported.
"Brian, how could you do this to Gabby? You selfishly remain silent while Gabby is all alone in the wilderness. Brian, your silence is reprehensible! We beg you to do the right thing and help us bing [sic] Gabby home," the statement read.
They accused Laundrie of sitting “in the comfort of his home” while her family continues the desperate search.
"Brian claims he wants to sit in the background while we search for Gabby in the wilderness of the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Brian left Gabby in the wilderness with grizzly bears and wolves while he sits in the comfort of his home. In his home!"
Investigators say Petito, 22, was last in contact with her family in late August when the couple was visiting Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Much of their trip was documented on social media accounts that abruptly ceased.
Laundrie returned to their Florida home in her 2012 white Ford Transit van on Sept. 1 — 10 days before Petito’s family reported her missing — according to police in the Gulf Coast town of North Port. That van has since been impounded by investigators and processed for clues.
He has not been charged with any crime. Fox News attempted to contact Laundrie through a family member's possible email.
“The lack of information from Brian is hindering this investigation. The answers will eventually come out,” North Port police Chief Todd Garrison said.
AP contributed to this report
Utah sheriff ‘actively' investigating possible connection between Petito disappearance and double homicide
By Michael Ruiz , Paul Best | Fox News
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The Grand County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that it is "actively looking into any connection" between a double homicide of newlyweds at a campground outside Moab last month and the recent disappearance of Gabby Petito.
"The Sheriff’s Office is not ruling anything out at this time and appreciate the concerns of the public and their willingness to contact this office with those concerns and information," the Grand County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
The newlyweds, 38-year-old Crystal Turner and 24-year-old Kylen Schulte, were found shot to death at a campground southeast of Moab on Aug. 18, five days after they were last seen leaving a downtown bar.
Bridget Calvert, Schulte's aunt, told KUTV that the couple complained about a "creepy guy" who was making them uncomfortable in their campsite just days before the double homicide.
Grand County Sheriff Steven White said investigators think an "outside party" shot the women then fled the area.
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Schulte worked at Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, which is the same location that Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, got into a fight on Aug. 12, according to a police report obtained by Fox News.
A witness called 911 to report a "possible domestic violence" incident between the couple on a street near the store.
"The driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female, Gabbie," a responding officer wrote in the report after interviewing Petito, Laundrie, and the witness.
"The male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go take a walk to calm down, she didn’t want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him," the report said. "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."
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No charges were filed and no significant injuries were reported by police.
"It appeared that this incident was more accurately categorized as a mental/emotional health 'break' than a domestic assault," an officer wrote in the report.
The President of the Board of the Moonflower co-op told Fox News that no one from the store witnessed the altercation between Petito and Laundrie on Aug. 12.
Brian Laundrie's lawyer, Steven Bertolino, said in a statement Thursday night that any connection between the two cases will be determined at a later date.
"Law Enforcement has to follow protocol and all leads that they get," Bertolino said, according to WBBH. "Whether or not these two cases deserve to be linked will be determined at some point in the future."
The couple left a hotel in Salt Lake City, about 230 miles northwest of Moab, on Aug. 24 and were heading to Grand Teton National Park then eventually Yellowstone, according to Petito's family.
The last verbal conversation Petito's mom, Nichole Schmidt, had with her daughter was on Aug. 25, when the couple was apparently in Grand Teton.
Laundrie returned home to North Port, where the couple's trip began, on Sept. 1 with Petito's white van, but without Petito.
Schmidt received a text from Petito's phone on Aug. 27 and another one on Aug. 30, but she does not think these texts were from her daughter.
"I believe that text was not from my daughter. Now that we know the van was in Florida on the 1st, there is no way that text was from my daughter," Schmidt told Fox News.
Petito was reported missing on Sept. 11 and the van was recovered from the home of Laundrie's parents on that same night.
The North Port Police Department named Laundrie, who has retained a lawyer and is not cooperating with the investigation, as a person of interest in the case on Wednesday.
Rainbow appears where officials find body believed to be Gabby Petito, dad posts heartbreaking tweet
By Michael Lee | Fox News
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A rainbow appeared in the area where authorities earlier Sunday discovered what they believe to be the body of Gabby Petito in Grand Teton National Park.
The rainbow appeared shortly after the the coroner's office departed with a body the FBI said matched the description of Petito, though they said the body has yet to be 100% positively identified and the case is still under investigation.
Petito is an aspiring blogger who was able to amass thousands of fans as she documented her travels across the country, often to national parks and other wilderness areas in a white van that was retrofitted for sleeping.
Her YouTube channel, entitled Nomadic Statik, was shared widely around the world and showcased her cross-country trip over the summer.
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The story of her disappearance grabbed national headlines, while one person that has known her 20 years described her as "love, light and rainbows. Just a beautiful person."
Petito set off on her cross-country trip in June, driving from Florida to New York and on to the west coast. She visited many of the country's most famed national parks on the journey, documenting it all on social media.
In July she visited Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is in southern Colorado and then Zion National Park in Utah.
"The past two nights camping in Zion have been so cool, literally," Petito wrote on social media.
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Petito also posted about her visit to Arches National Park in Utah, boasting that the couple took the "less traveled" path.
"We decided to take the path less traveled on the other side of the arch," she wrote as a caption to a picture posted to social media from the park.
In August she uploaded a video to YouTube featuring her converted camper van, titling the video "VAN LIFE | Beginning Our Van Life Journey."
A frantic search began for Petito after her family reported her missing.
A body believed to be Petito's was discovered at Petito in Grand Teton National Park Sunday, though authorities said they have yet to 100% confirm the identification of the body.
Missing Gabby Petito: Police defend approach to questioning Brian Laundrie, who is now also missing
By Michael Ruiz , Audrey Conklin | Fox News
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JACKSON, Wyo. – When Gabby Petito went missing sometime in late August and her fiancé Brian Laundrie allegedly showed up alone at his parents’ home in Florida in her van – refusing to tell police where he last saw her – critics around the country wanted to know why authorities didn’t drag him in for questioning.
"The North Port Police Department has no authority to execute a possible federal search warrant on our own," department spokesman Josh Taylor told Fox News Digital Sunday. "I don’t see how anyone without all the facts in this case can come up with a reasonable conclusion and opinion on the matter."
He said investigators have still not established whether a crime even took place – in Florida or out West. And he noted that many details about the case have been kept secret to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
"There is no information that a crime took place here in North Port," Taylor told Fox News. "That is our jurisdiction."
North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said during a news conference earlier in the week that Laundrie had a constitutional right to decline to speak with police about the case.
Garrison’s investigators for days asked for Laundrie and his attorney to cooperate – only to learn during a visit to his home Friday that his parents hadn’t seen him for three days.
Pat Diaz, a former Miami-Dade homicide detective who played a leading role in cracking parts of the "Cocaine Cowboys," said that police wouldn’t necessarily have needed to suspect a crime in order to get warrants for a missing person case.
"Why would you [try to] get consent from the guy, and not get a search warrant?" he asked Sunday. "You can get a search warrant for everything in that house, including his laptop."
He said an examination of Laundrie’s electronics on the day Petito was reported missing could have given investigators an abundance of clues about her whereabouts. Even if Laundrie refused to talk and no crime was suspected.
And he questioned why the local sheriff’s department or state investigators didn’t take over early on.
Now searches for Petito and Laundrie are underway in Wyoming and Florida, respectively – and after Laundrie's parents reported him missing, an attorney for Petito's parents sent out a scathing statement.
"All of Gabby's family want the world to know that Brian is not missing, he is hiding," attorney Richard Stafford told reporters Friday night. "Gabby is missing."
Fox News Digital was barred from entering a road leading to a campground in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Moose, Wyoming, that the FBI was searching for Petito Sunday. A U.S. Park Ranger was turning vehicles away and declined to comment.
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The FBI Denver Field Office confirmed Saturday that the agency, in coordination with the Grand Teton National Park Service, Teton County Sheriff’s Office and Jackson Police Department, were searching areas in nearby Grand Teton National Park.
Taylor said officers were still searching for Laundrie in the Carlton Reserve near his parents’ Florida home as well.
North Port police entered the Laundrie home Friday evening. Petito had also lived there before she went missing.
Police were shocked to learn that Brian Laundrie wasn’t there – and his parents told investigators that they hadn’t seen him since Tuesday, Sept. 14.
Laundrie allegedly returned to Florida on Sept. 1 – then said nothing to his would-be in-laws for days. Petito’s mother reported her missing on Sept. 11. She said the two had last spoken on Aug. 25, when Petito said she was headed toward Yellowstone National Park.
That same day, North Port police seized the couple’s van at Laundrie’s home. Investigators have not released details about the results of an FBI forensic examination of the vehicle.
Even without Laundrie’s other devices, experts said it’s possible that the van could have held location data about the road trip and provided clues to Petito’s whereabouts.
