Recent homicide victim Gabby Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, who is now a person of interest in her death, had a “toxic” relationship at times and “always had some drama,” friends recently told People.
The magazine recently spoke to two friends of the couple, who had embarked on a cross-country trip in a converted van before their journey took a tragic turn. Each friend told the news site that the couple, who began dating after meeting at their local Long Island, N. Y. high school, had some good times – but also some bad.
“They had times they were toxic and times where everything seemed a lot more healthy,” said Petito’s friend, 23-year-old Alyssa Chen, according to the Wednesday report. “They had very low lows and very high highs. But they really seemed to love each other.”
She added: “When things were good, you’d be like, ‘Why can’t I have a relationship like that?’ When they were bad, you’d be like ‘Oh my God, just break up and spare yourself from the drama and everyone else from having to hear about it.’”
Laundrie, 23, was named a person of interest earlier this month after he arrived home from the trip without Petito, 22. He is believed to have driven the white van from the area of Teton National Park in Wyoming toward the end of August.
Ben Matula, one of Laundrie’s friends, told People the couple “always had drama.”
“One minute, they’d be all over each other, the next minute, he’d be like, ‘We’re fighting,’” Matula said.
Laundrie returned home just before 10 a.m. on Sept. 1 without Petito, officials have said. Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, reported her missing to Suffolk County, Long Island police on Sept. 11.
Fox News Digital recently obtained Schmidt’s missing persons’ report, in which the concerned mother stated that her daughter was last seen at 7 a.m. on Aug. 30 at Grand Teton National Park. Schmidt wrote in the report that her Long Island home was a “probable destination.”
And police records show that on Aug. 12, police in Moab, Utah responded to a report of a domestic dispute between the young couple. In a 911 call placed at the time, a person can be heard telling a police dispatcher that “the gentleman was slapping the girl.”
The call appears to contradict a police report in which an officer states “no one reported that the male struck the female.”
“The male tried to create distance by telling Gabb[y] to go take a walk to calm down, she didn’t want to be separated from the male, and began slapping him,” the report continued. “He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van, he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his driver’s door, she opened that and forced her way over to him and into the vehicle before it drove off.”
One of the officers on the scene wrote that the inciden… (Read more)
