The parents of slain camper Gabby Petitio accused Brian Laundrie’s mother and father of withholding crucial information about her death and his mysterious disappearance.
In an interview with “60 Minutes Australia” that aired this past weekend, Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, didn’t mince words in calling out the Florida couple who had once been in line to become her daughter’s in-laws.
“I think silence speaks volumes. I believe they know probably, if not everything, they know most of the information,” Schmidt said. “I would love to just, face to face, ask, ‘Why are you doing this? Just tell me the truth.’ “
Petito’s body was discovered on Sept. 19 at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, and a coroner ruled her death a homicide by “manual strangulation.”
Petito and Laundrie were on a cross-country road trip, chronicling their travels on social media, before he returned to his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, arriving there Sept. 1 without his fiancée, police said.
Laundrie’s parents have kept a low profile ever since, telling investigators their son went hiking Sept. 14 and never returned, sparking a now weekslong national manhunt.
A representative for the Laundrie family could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday.
Petito’s stepfather, Jim Schmidt, bristled when the “60 Minutes Australia” interviewer said Laundrie was “missing.”
“Can we change ‘missing’ to ‘hiding?’ ” Schmidt asked. “Gabby was missing. There’s a lot of other people out there that are missing. He’s hiding.”
Police have thus far only called Laundrie a “person of interest” in their investigation into Petito’s death, though an arrest warrant was issued for him after authorities said he used her debit card without permission.
Also last month, police in Moab City, Utah, released officers’ body camera footage capturing a distraught Petito following an alleged physical altercation between them.
“It’s just hard to watch. I wanted to jump through the screen and rescue her,” Nicole Schmidt said. “I saw a young girl that needed someone to just hug her and keep her safe. I just felt so bad for her. I wish that she reached out to me.”
The police footage stood in stark contrast to images the couple had posted on social media, showing happy-go-lucky love birds on their cross-country adventure.
“Outside looking in, she did look happy,” Joseph Petito said of his daughter. “But as we look more and more into this, it might not have been as been as great as people online perceived.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
