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An exclusive Fox News report reveals what happened to Gabby Petito just weeks before her disappearance.
A 911 caller reported a “domestic dispute” between Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito in Moab, Utah, on Aug. 12, the report says.
The caller is heard telling a dispatcher that “the gentleman was slapping the girl” and hitting her. Fox News confirmed the information after exclusively obtaining the audio of the call.
“He was slapping her?” the dispatcher was heard asking.
“Yes, and then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off,” the caller said
Here’s the disturbing phone call:
EXCLUSIVE: 911 caller in Gabby Petito 'incident' says fiancé seen hitting, 'slapping' her weeks before disappearance https://t.co/kowToSO2oS pic.twitter.com/noREfGPxuG
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 20, 2021
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The audio provides a closer glimpse at the circumstances surrounding the couple’s encounter with police weeks before Petito vanished. A body that investigators believed to be Petito’s turned up Sunday in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, while Laundrie’s current whereabouts Monday remain unknown.
The 911 call apparently contradicted a prior report written by police in which a responding officer had written that “no one reported that the male struck the female.”
Last week, Fox News reported that a witness had called 911 around 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 12 over “possible domestic violence” near Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab and said he saw Petito and Laundrie arguing over a phone.
“The driver of the van, a male, had some sort of argument with the female, Gabbie,” a responding officer wrote in a police report, citing conversations he had with Petito, Laundrie, and the witness.
According to a report on BPR, the recent mystery of a 22 year old influencer who vanished in the middle of a cross-country vacation that she and her boyfriend were documenting for their followers sheds light on a relationship that was rockier than their posts portrayed.
Law enforcement officials in Utah have released body camera footage they captured of the couple while investigating a completely different mystery.
Gabby Petito spent the summer traveling with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie to several of the most popular national parks in Utah, Wyoming and California.
Laundrie returned to his home in Florida without Gabby in the van the were traveling in together, which triggered her mother to file a missing persons report with the police.
In August, police in Utah responded to the bodega where Petito was employed to what was described as a “mental health incident” that involved Landrie, Petito and another person who was discovered to be shot and killed just days later. The third person, Kylen Schulte also worked at the bodega with Petito.
Crystal Turner, 38 and Kylen Schulte, 24, were missing for multiple days before being found partially clothed and shot to death by a friend.
A Grand County Sheriff’s Office spokesman told Fox News.“We’re looking at everything, I mean, anything and everything that was suspicious around that time or we’re not ruling anything out at this time,”. He added, “So we’re just investigating the information as it comes in.”
Local police have stated that there is a connection between the influencers and the murdered women, but they have not ruled out the possibility of a relationship between the two mysteries.
Moab City Police Department also contributed to the ongoing flow of breaking news by releasing body camera footage that they gathered of Petito and Laundrie during an encounter on August 12th. They did not make any custodial arrests, but they did decide to permit Petito to stay with their van while escorting Laundrie to a hotel nearby.
This was the same van Laundrie drove to Flroida, arriving without his girlfriend Petito.
Authorities have stated that Laundrie is not cooperating with their investigation and although is still free, he is a person of interest.
The Petito family has publicly pleaded with Laundrie to assist the police in the search for Petito.
Richard Stafford, the family’s spokesperson said in a statement this week; “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!” Stafford concluded.