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The fiance of a young woman who went missing after the couple shared their travels across the country on social media has been named as a person of interest in the investigation, police said on Wednesday.
Brian Laundrie returned home to North Port, Fla. On September 1 driving the white van the couple used on trips shared with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and the YouTube channel “Van Life” of the couple. However, his 22-year-old fiancée Gabrielle Petito was nowhere to be found, police said.
It was 10 days later that, according to police, Petito’s family reported her disappearance to the Suffolk County Police Department, telling investigators they had had no contact with her since the last week of August. Despite Laundrie’s return, police said he had made no contact with police regarding his Petito’s disappearance.
North Port Police on Wednesday named Laundrie as a “person of interest” in the case and said neither he nor his lawyer had answered questions about what happened to Petito or where she might find herself.
“We don’t know what Brian knows, that’s the bottom line,” Josh Taylor, public information manager for the department, said at a press conference Wednesday. “We need to know exactly where he was, where she was, their last locations.”
Moab, Utah, police officials also released an Aug.12 report on Wednesday when officers were alerted to a “domestic problem” in which Laundrie was seen assaulting Petito.
Investigators attempted to speak to Laundrie on Saturday night at his North Port home, where Petito was also living at the time, Taylor said.
“We asked to speak to Brian and his family, and we were basically handed the information for their lawyer,” he said. “This is the extent of our conversation with them. I understand we had a few conversations with his lawyer, but certainly nothing to provide us with the details we would like.”
Laundrie’s attorney, Steven Bertolino, did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News requests for comment. But he said the Daily Beast Laundrie was ordered not to speak to the police.
“In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focuses their attention on in cases like this and the warning that” any statement made will be used against you “is true. whether or not my client has something to do with Ms. Petito’s disappearance, “he said in a statement.
It is believed that Petito last visited Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, where she and Laundrie were traveling in a 2012 Ford Transit van with a Florida license plate number QFTG03.
The couple had chronicled their travels across the country on their YouTube channel for more than 8,000 subscribers and their Instagram accounts, where both had amassed tens of thousands of followers.
According to Moab police, the couple were arrested on August 12 after a report said a man “assaulted the woman.” Laundrie told officers the two had an argument and that he “tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go for a walk to calm down.”
Laundrie told police Petito slapped her in the face and “grabbed her face and pushed her away”. Laundrie then tried to lock him out of the car, but Petito opened the driver’s side door and climbed him into the van.
“The man and woman said they were in love and engaged to get married and were desperate to see anyone charged with a crime,” the report said.
During the entire conversation with the police, an officer noted that Petito had not “stopped crying, breathing heavily, or composing a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe his nose or rub his nose. knees with hands “.
An officer convinced the couple to have Laundrie stay in a hotel room while she stayed with the van to “reset”.
Police said the van was seized by investigators at Laundrie’s home on Saturday and examined with help from the FBI.
According to a GoFundMe account created by Petito’s family, some of his relatives have also traveled to Wyoming in search of him.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison tweeted a personal plea to Laundrie’s lawyer, asking him to contact the police to help find Petito.
“Please call us to set up a conversation with Brian Laundrie,” Garrison wrote, including the hashtags #wheresgabby and #findgabby in the tweet. “Two people went on a trip and one person came back!”
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