FBI informant claims he saw man who could be Gabby Petito’s fiancée, Brian Laundrie, “act weird”

• A camper who believes she saw Brian Laundrie as Gabby Petito went missing said she saw him “acting weird”.

• Jessica Schultz informed the FBI of the location where a body was found, which authorities say belonged to the travel vlogger.

• The FBI and the attorney for the Petito family confirmed on Tuesday that the remains belonged to 22-year-old Petito.

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An informant who said she pointed the FBI in the right direction to find Gabby Petito’s remains said she saw a man she believed to be Brian Laundrie “acting oddly” near the campsite where her body was found.

Jessica Schultz, a camper who visited Grand Teton National Park in late August, said she saw a young man who appeared to be Laundrie driving alone near the Spread Creek campsite two days after Petito’s mother told him she was had spoken for the last time.

Schultz told the San Francisco Chronicle that on August 26, she was driving behind a slowly moving white pickup truck which she then said belonged to Petito and Laundrie. When the van pulled up in an area that was not a designated pick-up area, Schultz said it left the road to move.

Looking into the car as she passed, she said she noticed the driver, whom she described as a “generic” white young man, was alone. She said she saw the van again on August 27 and 28 without the man or anyone else around, adding that she and the group of other campers she was with had felt the van did not belong not because she was not in a designated parking lot. place.

“He was just acting weird,” Schultz told The Chronicle. “You know, when you’re in the middle of nowhere, your hairs lift up when you see something out of the ordinary.”

Schultz said she saw a straw hat on the dashboard of the pickup on a closer look, and she was convinced the man she saw was Laundrie after her friend sent her a photo with the distinctive hat.

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“My friend sent me a picture of the hat on the dash and I just lost my shit,” Schultz said. “And that’s when I called the FBI and said, ‘Guys, look at Spread Creek.'”

Earlier this year, Petito and Laundrie embarked on a road trip across the country, which was scheduled to end in Oregon in October. Her mother reported her missing on September 11, after Laundrie returned to Florida on her own.

On September 19, a body that authorities said was “as described” of Petito was later found in the national park near the Spread Creek campground. On Tuesday, the FBI and the attorney for the Petito family confirmed that the remains belonged to Petito.

Schultz told The Chronicle that the FBI agent she gave the tip to told her that the agency “spoke to hundreds of people, but you are the ones who really put us in the right place,” and the thanked for the information.

“We are triumphant. We were right and we led them in the right direction,” she said. “But then, of course, it’s not something you like to be right about. It sure was emotionally draining.”

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