MISSING LI GAL'S BEAU 'OF INTEREST'
Details emerge of couple’s road-trip fight in Utah
The boyfriend of missing Long Island woman Gabby Petito was identified Wednesday as a person of interest in her disappearance — as a new police report revealed that tension between the two “had been building” during their monthslong cross-country trip.
Brian Laundrie, 23, has stonewalled investigators since returning to the couple’s North Port, Fla., home on Sept. 1 and has rebuffed repeated requests from police and Petito’s family to tell them what happened.
“He was the last known person that we have information was around her,” North Port police spokesman Josh Taylor said at a press conference.
“How you define person of interest is up to you, but certainly we are interested in talking to him,” Taylor said. “If she’s out there, we’re doing everything in our power to bring her home.”
Petito, 22, and Laundrie were in the middle of a cross-country road trip out west in their converted Ford Transit van when family last heard from her in late August.
But about a month before the Blue Point native was reported missing by her mother, the young couple had gotten into a spat in Utah that cops said turned physical.
Tensions between the two exploded on Aug. 12, when Petito “began slapping” Laundrie outside Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab during a fight “over a phone,” according to a police report obtained by The Post.
Petito later admitted to responding officers that she “was struggling with her mental health.”
“I approached the vehicle and saw the only occupants being Gabrielle and Brian,” Moab Police Officer Daniel Scott Robbins said in the report. “Gabrielle, who was in the passenger seat, was crying uncontrollably. At no point in my investigation did Gabrielle stop crying, breathing heavily or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose or rub her knees with her hands.”
Petito allegedly scratched Laundrie while trying to slap him, prompting him to lock himself in the van to create distance between them, police said of the 4:30 p.m. incident that was observed by a witness.
“Brian said Gabrielle, thinking he was going to leave her in Moab without a ride, went to slap him,” the report said. “As Gabrielle started to swing, Brian pushed her away to avoid the slap. As a result Gabrielle, off-balance, but still caught Brian’s face with some fingers causing minor visible scratches.”
However, cops “then determined the most appropriate course of action would be to help separate the parties for the night so they could reset their mental states without interference from one another.”
“Both the male and the female reported that they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn’t wish to see anyone charged with a crime,” police said. “There were no significant injuries reported and both agreed that Gabbie [sic] suffers from serious anxiety, etc.”
The two spent the night apart — Laundrie in a hotel room and Petito in the van, which is registered in her name, the report said.
Laundrie also told police that both suffered from an undisclosed mental-health disorder and had not been taking medication.
Police are now reviewing surveillance footage from the couple’s trip — which Petito documented on her Instagram. Her last post on Aug. 25 showed her posing at the Monarch Mural in Ogden, Utah, though she is believed to have last been in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Five days later, Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, said she received a text from her daughter’s phone — the last one she’s gotten — reading, “No service in Yosemite.”
“I do not believe the text on August 30th was from my daughter,” Schmidt told The Post. “The van was in Florida on the 1st [of September]. I think I can do the math.”
Schmidt has repeatedly pleaded with Laundrie to tell them what happened, including in a new statement released on Wednesday calling him “reprehensible” for refusing to cooperate in the investigation.
“Brian left Gabby in the wilderness with grizzly bears and wolves while he sits in the comfort of his home,” the statement said.
“Brian, how could you do this to Gabby? You selfishly remain silent while Gabby is all alone in the wilderness.”
North Port police, the lead agency in the investigation that involves the FBI, said it’s combing through “hundreds of tips” that have poured in on Petito’s disappearance. Through his Long Island-based lawyer, Laundrie vowed to “continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.”
“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 statements will be used against you’ is true,” Laundrie’s attorney, Steven Bertolino, said in the statement.
“As such, on the advice of counsel, Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on this matter.”
Asked by The Post about his client being identified as a person of interest, Bertolino said he would “deal with it accordingly.”
“He’s now formally a person of interest,” he said. “What has really changed? He already was a person of interest for all intents and purposes.”