Additional police body camera footage obtained Thursday reveals new details in a domestic dispute between now-deceased Gabby Petito and her boyfriend, on-the-run Brian Laundrie, which took place on August 12.
The new footage shows a Moab city officer asking Petito to “be honest” and reveal if Laundrie had physically struck her. Fox News reported on the interaction:
“Did he hit you though?” the officer asks.
“I guess,” she replies – although she still appeared to downplay the incident to the second officer and try and assume blame herself.
“I guess, yea,” Petito continued, with tears in her eyes. “But I hit him first.”
“Where did he hit you?” the officer replied. “Don’t worry, just be honest.”
She then backtracked and said he grabbed her “with his nail” and claimed to have been the aggressor herself.
“He didn’t like hit me in the face,” she said. “He didn’t like punch me in the face or anything.”
“Did he slap your face, or what?” the officer asked.
Well he like, grabbed me with his nail, and I guess that’s why it looks, I definitely have a cut right here,” she said, rubbing her cheek. “I can feel it, when I touch it it burns.”
Last month, police body camera footage emerged from the August 12 interaction with the couple. A 911 caller told authorities he witnessed a domestic dispute between a couple, presumably Petito and Laundrie.
On Thursday, though, CNN obtained the new footage from a different officer’s body camera.
The Daily Wire last month reported on the 911 call that precipitated the police interaction:
Audio of the 911 call in question, which was first obtained by Fox News, “portrays Mr. Laundrie as the aggressor in the incident,” The Independent reported Monday.
“I’m right on the corner of Main St by Moonflower… I’d like to report a domestic dispute,” the caller says in the recording. “The gentleman was slapping the girl… they ran up and down the sidewalk, he proceeded to hit her and then they drove off.”
Following the alleged incident, authorities pulled over the couple but decided not to press charges on either Petito or Laundrie. Body camera footage from the stop shows a distressed and crying Petito; Laundrie seemed somewhat calm as authorities looked at the marks on his face and arm, supposedly from Petito.
The Daily Wire also reported in September that a park ranger warned Petito that her relationship with Laundrie appeared “toxic” and that he urged her to “find another path.”
Melissa Hulls, the visitor and resource protection supervisor at Utah’s Arches National Park, met Petito and Laundrie on August 12 after responding to a domestic disturbance call. Hulls found the couple inside the park already pulled over by a police officer from the nearby city of Moab. Hulls spent most of her time focusing on Petito, according to Deseret News.
“I can still hear her voice,” Hulls said. “She wasn’t just a face on the milk carton, she was real to me.”
Hulls said that she warned Petito that her relationship with Laundrie seemed “toxic.” Body camera footage from the stop captured a distraught and crying Petito.
“I was probably more candid with her than I should’ve been,” Hulls said. “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 had a lot of anxiety about being away from him, I honestly thought if anything was going to change it would be after they got home to Florida.”
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Source: Dailywire
