Rape survivor ‘sobbed when she saw Gabby Petito Utah bodycam vid’ after same cop ‘did nothing’ before her own breakdown
A RAPE survivor - who has slammed Gabby Petito Utah police officer Eric Pratt for how he handled her own case - says she sobbed when she saw how he dealt with Gabby's domestic dispute just days before she was murdered.
Jerika Peterson, 21, spoke to The U.S. Sun this week about how disgusted she was with the way Officer Pratt, now a defendant in a wrongful death suit, dealt with her complaint.
She was attacked at 15 by a male friend in Salina, where Pratt used to work, back in September 2016, and despite promising to get justice, her attacker was never arrested.
Jerika suffered a brutal attack as she was sodomized by the drunken 18-year-old and left with injuries after trying to fight him off.
Despite text messages showing she fled the scene, followed by an apology for his behavior, Jerika's rapist was only ever interviewed - and began turning up at events she attended.
She said Pratt was never even able to get a no-contact order as she dealt with her trauma, and her ordeal was back at the forefront of her mind when Pratt made the news in 2021.
According to his LinkedIn account, Pratt worked for Salina PD, which is 158 miles from Moab, from January 2014 to September 2017.
He left Salina following reports he had an affair with a woman who has since accused him of threatening to kill her with a crowbar, and Jerika feels he should not be an officer.
She says she was in tears when she saw the body-cam footage of a distraught Gabby, 22, being pulled over in Moab with fiance Brian Laundrie, 23.
Pratt ultimately named her the "primary aggressor" after she admitted to slapping her partner, and an independent review found mistakes were made by the officers involved.
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Talking about her ordeal after reporting her rape, Jerika told The U.S. Sun: "Almost exactly five years to the day [the attack happened], my rapist shot himself.
"I don't know why he killed himself, but I'm guessing his guilt was so bad he couldn't live with it, it's been a really hard situation for me. I don't know how to feel about it.
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
"Between that and then seeing all of the stuff with Gabby, I actually ended up going to the mental hospital, getting in contact with a psychiatrist, and getting some help. I had a nervous breakdown.
"I was fired from my job the day I found out about my attacker. My mom took me into the behavioral health unit. I was only there for a day but got set up.
"It just brought up a lot of past trauma. When I saw the bodycam footage, I just broke down in tears because I could feel her pain.
"Then to find out what had happened to her, and that Pratt had let someone slip through the cracks again. It was just sickening.
"I felt like during my case, he was on my side, but then looking back on it now, it's like nothing was ever done. And after he left the department, nothing was ever done about it."
Jerika says has suffered from night terrors and PTSD from the attack and his death which she is working through with the help of a psychiatrist.
"I woke up completely terrified one day that my abuser hadn't killed himself and was living in the apartment next door," she admitted."
Jerika, who is now healthier and happier, claimed Pratt was on her case for more than a year before he left the job, and in retrospect, she feels her case was swept under the rug.
She previously revealed her mother took her to the hospital after her attack, as she had cuts and bruises and a sprained jaw, explaining: "I was on mashed potatoes and smoothies. It was from me yelling and clenching my jaw."
The U.S. Sun reached out to Moab Police Department and Salina Police Department, but both declined to comment on her case.
BOMBSHELL LAWSUIT
Jerika says she hopes Petito's family gets some justice after Brian shot himself and they are now going through the courts with multiple lawsuits, including the $50million wrongful death suit against Moab PD.
Asked why she chose to speak out against Pratt now amid the lawsuit, she said: "I needed to do this, for Gabby and myself. It means so much to me to feel like I have people on my side. It's been a long journey.
"I would never have been able to come forward with this if it wasn't for Gabby, she has given me the strength I didn't know I had. Getting justice for Gabby and her family is justice for all victims in my eyes."
Jerika's comments come as the Petito family attorney, Brian Stewart, filed an amended complaint this week, claiming Pratt "knew Brian Laundrie was a mental and emotional threat to her" yet only decided to separate them for the night.
The lawsuit, first filed by Attorney Brian Stewart seven months ago, accuses the department of a series of negligent failures during an encounter with Gabby and her soon-to-be murderer boyfriend Brian on August 12, 2021.
On that day, the department had been alerted to a possible domestic dispute between the couple near a supermarket with one witness calling 911 saying a man was seen slapping his girlfriend.
The new filing reads: "Officer Pratt has since explained that, at the time of the traffic stop, he believed that Brian was emotionally and mentally abusing Gabby, that Gabby did not in fact assault Brian, and that Brian had used physical force on Gabby by grabbing her face which left a cut on her face.
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"Defendants' negligence and Officer Pratt's willful misconduct deprived Gabby of her safety and ultimately her life."
Pratt, Moab PD, and other defendants are yet to officially respond to the lawsuit.
