Moab, Utah, police released new body camera footage Thursday showing a second angle of officers’ interaction with Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie on Aug. 12. One angle of the interaction was released earlier this month.
In this footage, Petito describes Laundrie grabbing and unintentionally scratching her face after she initially hit him.
When asked if Laundrie hit her, she responded, “I guess, I guess yeah,” adding, “but I hit him first.”
Gabby Petito touches her face while talking to police about her altercation with Brian Laundrie in police bodycam footage released Sept. 30 from an Aug. 12, 2021, incident in Moab, Utah.
”Where did he hit you? Don’t worry, just be honest,” the officer asked.
She responded by grabbing her own face.
“He grabbed my face, I guess. He didn’t like hit me in the face, like he didn’t punch me in the face or anything,” she said making a punching motion.
“Did he slap your face or what?” the cop asked.
“Well he like grabbed me with his nail, which I guess is why I have a cut right here I can feel it, when I touch it it burns,” she responded.
Petito said that she and Laundrie got into a fight in which he got frustrated and locked her out of the car to take a “breather.” She said she wanted to get going because they were out of water.
The footage also showed the same police officer on the phone with a witness who saw Petito and Laundrie allegedly fight at a grocery store.
The witness reiterated multiple times that something seemed very “off” to him.
When asked if the witness saw Laundrie strike Petito the witness said, “I wouldn’t say that, I think that probably maybe a push or a shove, but not like a full on punch to the face or anything.”
-ABC News' Lissette Rodriguez and Henderson Hewes
