Father of Gabby Petito slams boyfriend Brian Laundrie for stonewalling police investigation
‘We don’t even know where she is, what state she’s in,’ says Joe Petito
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Gabby Petito’s father Joe has ripped into her boyfriend Brian Laundrie for his refusal to cooperate with police searching for the missing YouTuber.
Ms Petito, 22, vanished while on a cross-country van trip with Mr Laundrie exploring US national parks.
She last contacted her family on August 25, and six days later Mr Laundrie returned to his parent’s home in Florida without reporting her missing.
Mr Laundrie’s family released a statement through their attorney on Tuesday saying they hoped the search would be successful, but offering no clues as to her whereabouts.
“This is an extremely difficult time for both the Petito family and the Laundrie family,” the statement from attorney Steve Bertolino said.
“On the advice of counsel the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment,” the four paragraph statement concluded.
Appearing on Fox News, Gabby’s father Joe Petito said: “I’m sorry. That’s not a statement.
“Forget Brian, Brian’s home safe. His parents, yeah it’s hard for them. Bulls***.
“You know what? My daughter is not here. Our daughter is not here. We don’t even know where she is, what state she’s in.
“You know, we’re shooting from the hip here and trying to do what we can. So I don’t care about the statement. I care about finding Gabby.”
After Mr Petito’s interview on Wednesday morning, Mr Laundrie was named as a “person of interest” in the case by North Port Police.
Me Petito said he had met with Mr Laundrie, who was engaged to his daughter, several times and hadn’t noticed any “red flags”.
“Nothing to indicate what’s going on today,” he said. “They loved each other.”
Mr Petito appealed for the public to keep his daughter at the forefront of their minds, and revealed he had been left distraught when her Instagram account was temporarily deleted.
“You need to look at Gabby. Memorise her face, memorise her tattoos, her mannerisms.”
The Instagram page had been reinstated on Wednesday.
Jim Schmidt, Ms Petito’s stepfather, told Fox he had flown to Jackson, Wyoming, to assist in the search.
He said the family wanted to have a presence at the location of Ms Petito’s last known whereabouts.
“We didn’t have anybody out here and we all just agreed that we needed somebody out here to assist,” Ms Schmidt, who is married to Ms Petito’s mother Nicole, said.
“All these law enforcement agencies are working collectively and they are doing their best.”