Where Is The Third Video? Unreleased Body-Camera Footage From Gabby Petito-Brian Laundrie Moab Police Stop In Utah At Center Of Controversy
Oct. 20 2021, Published 12:58 p.m. ET
There is a third and unreleased video from that pivotal Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie police stop in Utah that's causing controversy.
As Breaking Celebrity News has previously reported, two male Moab Police Department officers pulled the pair over in their white Ford Transit van on Aug. 12 following an eyewitness report of a domestic dispute.
At first, only one officer's body-camera footage of the hour-plus-long encounter was released to the public. It told Laundrie's calm, cool and collected side of the story but did not show the officers' private conversation with a hysterical and physically hurt Petito after they escorted her to the back of their squad car.
The second officer's body-camera footage was released two weeks later after much demand from the invested public and skeptical media. It showed Petito sitting in the backseat of the cop car, crying as she told officers that Laundrie had "grabbed [her] face" and left a "burning" gash on her cheek during an earlier fight.
The officers – Daniel Robbin and Eric Pratt – are currently being investigated, as is the department as a whole, given that they have been accused of purposefully trying to keep the second video concealed.
But there was a third official present for the stop – a female ranger who works for the Arches National Park, where the pair was pulled over. Her name is Melissa Hulls, and she is the park's visitor and resource protection supervisor.
On. Aug. 12, Hulls heard the aforementioned call come over her radio and made her way to where the officers and troubled couple were. While she has spoken out about her one-on-one interaction with Petito during the stop, there also exists body-camera footage of their conversation.
And park officials are reportedly refusing to release it.
Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess – a behavioral scientist – spoke to NewsNation Now Tuesday night about what body-language signs she saw from both Laundrie and Petito in the two previously released videos. She noted behaviors she said were consistent with those of a domestic abuser and a domestic abuse victim, respectively, before going on to say she would "love" to feast her eyes on Hulls' video.
"What we don't have that I would love to see is the female [ranger] that spends time with [Petito] while the male police officers are talking to Laundrie," Burgess said. "And we hear that, which is very important, in and of itself, but what is said to [Petito] by the female [ranger] – I really wonder whether that started to give Gabby some ideas about who she was staying with."