Report: 911 Caller in Petito ‘Incident’ Claimed Boyfriend Seen ‘Slapping’ Her

The Moab Police Department via AP
Amy Furr

The person who reported a dispute between Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito in Utah on August 12 apparently told the 911 dispatcher “the gentleman was slapping the girl,” Fox News reported Monday.

In the audio clip obtained by the outlet, the caller told the dispatcher his location and said, “We were driving by and I’d like to report a domestic dispute [inaudible] Florida license plate, white van, gentleman…”

When the dispatcher asked where the vehicle was, the caller said, “They just drove off. They’re going down Main Street. They made a right onto Main Street from Moonflower.”

The dispatcher then asked what the couple was doing to which the caller replied, “We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl.”

“He was slapping her?” the dispatcher asked.

“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 alleged:

The clip provided more details surrounding the couple’s interaction with police in the weeks before Petito went missing.

On Thursday, Utah’s Moab City Police Department released video footage of officers talking with Petito, the 22-year-old who had been documenting her cross-country journey online, and boyfriend Laundrie:

According to Fox News, the 911 call appeared to contradict an earlier report by police in which an officer wrote “no one reported that the male struck the female.”

On Sunday, the Teton County Coroner said officials responded to a report of a body found at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, the area where officers had been searching for Petito.

In a statement, FBI Denver announced, “The search revealed human remains consistent with the description of Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito,” but a full forensic identification had not yet been completed:

On Monday, law enforcement officers swarmed the home of Laundrie’s family, while the boyfriend of Petito, identified as a person of interest in the case, remained missing.

FBI Tampa said it was executing a “court-authorized search warrant” at the Laundrie residence in North Port, Florida, regarding the Petito investigation:

WFLA reporter Christine McLarty shared photos of the scene:

“The activity occurred hours after the North Port Police Department said it was no longer searching the Carlton Reserve for Brian Laundrie, whose family reported him missing on Friday,” according to Breitbart News.

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