Disheartening footage has shown Brian Laundrie’s parents refusing to cooperate with police in their search for his then-missing girlfriend, Gabby Petito.
Gabrielle Petito, 22, never returned from her ill-fated ‘trip of a lifetime’ three years ago as her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, 23, beat and strangled her to death on their cross-country trip.
He left her body in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, while he returned to North Port, Florida alone.
Newly surfaced police footage showed North Port police at Laundrie’s Florida home – the night Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, reported her missing – asking for cooperation in their search for the woman.
When officers knocked on the dimly-lit Laundrie home on the evening of September 11, 2021, Laundrie’s parents, Christopher and Roberta, can be seen suspiciously opening their front door, standing in the doorway enough to block the view of the home’s interior.
‘I’m not talking to anyone,’ Christopher said after police revealed they had a New York detective on the phone.
Following repeated attempts by the North Port officers, Christopher insisted he did not want to talk.
The footage shows Christopher dressed in a sleeveless shirt while his wife, Roberta, stands in his shadow blocking the narrow sliver of open doorway before the officer asked: ‘When was the last time you saw Brian and Gabrielle?’
Stuttering over his words, Christopher revealed that Brian was inside their North Port home and ‘that’s all I’m going to say.’
Christopher proceeded to tell the officer that he has an attorney and police can contact him, before he slipped inside to gather the contact information.
Never opening the door more than a sliver, Christopher hands the officer a post-it sized note allegedly with Laundrie’s attorney’s contact information before angrily confirming with officers that Petito was not inside the home with Laundrie.
‘No, no, she’s not here,’ he said before agitatedly explaining someone was questioning him the night before on Petito’s whereabouts.
Before leaving the home, the officer inquired about the lone-white van in the driveway, registered only to Petito.
‘Is this her vehicle? Her van?’ the officer questioned.
Christopher said as he walked inside: ‘It’s… it’s both of them.’
While deliberating with the on-phone detective outside the Laundrie’s home, the officer shares that the family ‘is tired of being harassed and being called by the [Petito] family.’
The detective then divulged additional information of a story provided by Laundrie’s sister, Cassie, placing him on a flight back from Wyoming – where he left Petito – though the van they were traveling in together was parked in the Florida driveway.
She shared with the officer that Petito’s phone has been off for 10 days and that her family has not had ‘any contact with her whatsoever’ since.
About 45 minutes after their first encounter, the officer revisited the Laundrie doorstep attempting to appeal to their sympathetic side pleading: ‘I’m trying to figure something out for her parents. You guys, as parents, all they want to know is that their daughter, that she’s safe.’
‘We don’t know anything,’ Christopher replied as Roberta stand behind him, silent.
The officer pleaded for more help and information regarding the last time Laundrie saw Petito, further asking to speak with Laundrie himself.
Talking firmly and with his hands, Christopher told the officer Laundrie would not talk to him or to anybody.
Questioning the oddity that was the Laundrie couple’s behavior, the officer pleaded again trying to extract any information possible.
Laundrie’s father told the officer and detective he has been conferring with to call his attorney and ‘that’s that.’
Following the confrontation the officer explained the van was solely registered to Petito and that he was arranging for a tow to come pick up the vehicle.
‘This nightmare never ends,’ Schmidt told Fox News Digital today, just over three years after her daughter’s remains were found.
Authorities say after Laundrie bludgeoned and strangled his then-girlfriend, he left her body in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and drove home to his parents’ house in North Port – using her van and debit card.
Petito, of Blue Point, New York, had last been seen alive at a grocery store in Jackson, Wyoming on August 28, 2021.