TEARS OF PAIN
Gabby Petito bodycam reveals bruises to her neck and arm as she says Brian Laundrie ‘grabbed and scratched her face’
MORE harrowing Gabby Petito body cam footage was released and showed the vlogger had bruises on her neck and arm after telling cops Brian Laundrie "scratched and grabbed her."
The August 12 clip was released by police in Moab, , on Thursday and shows the 22-year-old fighting back tears as she recounts a clash with her now missing fiancé, .
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recounts to responding officers how Laundrie, 23, grabbed her face, left a "burning" gash on her cheek, and red marks on her arm as she turns her head to let them look at her injuries.
“Did he hit you though? I mean, it's okay if you're saying you hit him. I understand if he hit you, but we want to know the truth if he actually hit you," the cop asked her.
"I, I guess, yeah, but I hit him first..." Gabby replies before the officer pushes her for more details. "He like grabbed my face, like, like I guess. He didn’t like like hit me in the face. He didn’t like punch me in the face.
"Well, he like grabbed me, like, with his nail, and I guess that's why it hurts. I definitely have a cut. Like, I can feel it."
The new bodycam footage followed a police and park ranger response to a 911 call about a domestic violence incident between Gabby and Laundrie outside the Moonflower Cafe.
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The footage, captured 13 days before Gabby was, shows van-life YouTuber sobbing to police after the couple drove the transit van into the curb during a fight.
As Gabby sat in one of the cop’s SUV units, one of the officers pointed out the cut on her left cheek and red soreness on her left arm, Gabby looked at herself and said “I don’t know.”
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“What happened here, here and there,” the officer asked again – but Gabby told him: “I'm not sure. It happened really fast.”
She then started to well up in tears as she said she was trying to get back into the car and retrieve her bag, sobbing "and the backpack got me."
The officer explains they received a call from multiple witnesses saying that Laundrie struck Gabby.
“So there's two people that came to us and said they saw him hit you,” the officer can be heard telling her," he said. “There's two people saying they saw him punch you. Just independent witnesses by Moonflower [Cafe].”
But Gabby insisted that she started it.
'PUSHED HER AWAY'
For Laundrie’s part, he tried to explain to the officers that he "didn’t have time" to shield himself from the 22-year-old Gabby and so he claimed he acted in defense.
"I pushed her away," he tells the Moab police officer, according to the near one hour video posted online by and tweet in seven installments by News Nation Now reporter Brian Entin.
"She gets really worked up, and when she does she swings and she had her cell phone in her hand. So I was just trying to push her away."
The officer called one of the witnesses who initially reached out to cops.
He suspected Laundrie appeared to be trying to take Gabby's phone and that she was in danger of being stranded out of the van but acknowledged that she appeared to be the "primary aggressor" after slapping her fiancé.
"This gentleman noticed you've got some marks on your neck and she's got some marks on her too," the cop told him during the lengthy video, before Laundrie gave his statement to two other policemen.
VAN LIFE TRIP
The couple was around two months into their planned four-month cross-country road trip touring the US’ national parks before vanished sometime around August 27.
The was ruled a homicide.
The speed suggests that there are likely "visible signs of trauma consistent with an attack" .
The investigation into Gabby's murder continues and the official cause of death hasn’t been released.
The new footage puts into question whether Laundrie had more than one cell phone during their cross-country travels.
In a moment when attempts to retrieve Gabby's cellphone, he is seen slipping what appears to be a different phone into his pocket, according to .
Toward the end of the stop with cops and rangers, Laundrie can then be seen pulling a phone out of his pocket.
WANTED MAN
The police footage was released amid an ongoing frantic search for from his parents' home days after returning from their cross-country vacation without her on September 1.
Gabby, who had been traveling across the country with Laundrie in their camper van since July 2, was last known to have been visiting Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on August 25.
She was officially reported missing by her mom on September 11, two weeks after she'd last spoken to her daughter on the phone, and ten days after Laundrie returned home to Florida in Gabby's van without her.
He failed to alert police or Gabby's family that she was missing.
Laundrie then reportedly vanished on September 14, five days before Gabby's remains were discovered in the Spread Creek Dispersed Campground area, in Grand Teton National Park.
A manhunt has since ensued with Laundrie being named as a “person of interest” in the homicide death of Gabby's.
He’s been missing for more than two weeks and wanted on a warrant for alleged bank fraud after running up $1,000 in that reportedly belonged to Gabby.
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Gabby Petito timeline
Gabby Petito, 22, was last seen on August 24, leaving a hotel in Utah. Here is a timeline of Gabby Petito's disappearance:
- June 2021 - set off on a cross-country trip across the US.
- July 4 - posts photos of herself barefoot in Gove County, Kansas.
- July 8 - Gabby posts photos of herself at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
- July 18 - Gabby and post photos of themselves at Utah's Zion National Park.
- August 12 - in September showing an encounter Brian and Gabby had with police in Utah. Police confirmed that no significant injuries were reported.
- August 19 - on their YouTube channel chronicling their trip.
- August 24 - Gabby is spotted leaving a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- August 25 - Gabby Facetimes her mom, Nichole Schmidt, for the final time. In a later police report, Schmidt said her conversations with her daughter revealed "" between her and Brian.
- August 25 - Gabby also posts her last Instagram. No location is given.
- August 27 - Gabby is . Witnesses claim they saw Brian in an explosive argument with staff at a restaurant in Jackson Hole, leaving Gabby in tears.
- August 27 - Four hours later, travel bloggers driving through Grand Teton National Park drive past the couple's van "abandoned" on a dirt road.
- September 1 - Brian returns home to without Gabby.
- September 11 - report her missing to Suffolk County police.
- September 14 - Brian's family issues a statement saying he has retained an attorney and will not be cooperating with investigators.
- September 14 - Brian is by his family. He reportedly told them he was going hiking in Cartlon Reserve but failed to return.
- September 15 - Florida's North Port police announce in the case. He is not charged with any crime.
- September 16 - Utah police release of the police encounter with Brian and Gabby.
- September 17 - say they have not seen their son in a couple of days and report him missing.
- September 18 - Police announc. Police announce they have not found anything.
- September 19 - Authorities in Wyoming say . The FBI announces the body was believed to be Gabby's but a full forensic identification needs to be completed first to confirm.
- September 20 - Police execute a search warrant on Laundrie's home, seizing and a hard drive that may contain "evidence relevant to proving that a felony has been committed."
- September 21 - Officials announce they will be on the remains found in Wyoming to confirm whether or not they belong to Gabby. Police also resumed their search for Laundrie, this time on the Venice side of Carlton Reserve.
- September 21 - The FBI announced the body found in Wyoming was identified as Gabby's. The cause of death was not yet revealed.
- September 21 - The Teton County Coroner's office said was still pending but the initial manner of death is homicide.
- September 22 - Police continue to scour for a trace of Laundrie but yield no leads. A specialist dive team is called in to assist with the hunt.
- September 23 - Officials announced a for Brian was issued.
- September 26 - Gabby'swas held on Long Island, New York.
'PUSH OR SHOVE'
Over a cell phone called the witness offers more details about what he saw.
"Did you ever see the male strike the female?" he asked.
"I wouldn’t say that," the witness answered.
"I think I saw maybe a push or a shove, but not a full-on punch to a face or anything."
"You did see her slapping him though it sounds like," the officer asked.
"Yes," the witness replied.
Further on in the video, the officer informs Laundrie that Gabby hadn't admitted he struck her.
INTERNAL INVESTIGATION
Since the incident which let Gabby ride off in the van and Laundrie crash for the night in a motel - the city of Moab announced an independent investigation into its department's handling of the domestic incident involving the dispute between the pair.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Days later, the police chief of the department decided to take a leave of absence, the reported.
On Monday, Chief Bret Edge requested some time off through the Family Medical Leave Act.
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