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Gabby Petito: Family of woman missing on US road trip say fiancé she was travelling with ‘won’t help find her’

Gabby Petito was on a road-trip with her fiance for nearly two months before she went missing

Arpan Rai
Wednesday 15 September 2021 20:07 BST
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Gabrielle Petito’s father slams fiance’s statement

The fiance of a missing 22-year-old New York woman, who went on a cross-country trip with her, has refused to help the family and investigators with the details of where he last saw the woman, reported NBC news.

Gabrielle Petito, also known as Gabby, was reported missing last week by her family who said that they last spoke to her on 25 August while she was on the last recorded spot in Wyoming on a road trip with her fiance Brian Laundrie.

Police officials have called Mr Laundrie a “person of interest” in the case and abstained from associating him with his fiance’s disappearance, reported NBC. There is no evidence that a crime has been committed.

Mr Laundrie, “the one person that can help find their daughter”, has now refused to help the family, Ms Petito’s mother Nicole Schmidt told NBC.

"The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help," Ms Schmidt’s attorney Richard Stafford said.

Mr Stafford said that Gabby was accompanied by her partner as they were travelling together in the woman’s 2012 Ford Transit van. The family believes that Gabby was last seen in the Grand Teton area in Yellowstone, he said.

Ms Petito and her partner had left New York together in early July and covered a range of national parks on their 2,328 miles of road journey before finally reaching Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Only Mr Laundrie returned from the trip to his parents house in Florida recently, shortly after which his family released a statement hoping for Ms Petito reunites with her family.

"On the advice of counsel, the Laundrie family is remaining in the background at this juncture and will have no further comment," the family said in a statement, reported Insider.

Slamming the man’s decision to “remain in the background”, the attorney representing Ms Petito’s family accused the fiance of refusing to tell Gabby’s family where he last saw her. "Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers," Mr Stafford told NBC.

The Suffolk County police also launched an investigation on Saturday into the missing complaint made by Ms Petito’s family.

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