Gabby Petito had ‘full-blown fight with aggressive Brian Laundrie at restaurant hours before she was last seen’
BRIAN Laundrie was reportedly involved in an explosive argument with a waitress at a Wyoming restaurant on the day that Gabby Petito is believed to have last been seen alive.
Nina Celie Angelo, of New Orleans, said she had been visiting the state with her boyfriend on August 27 when they stopped for lunch at Merry Piglets, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson Hole between 1 and 2pm.
Speaking to Fox News, Angelo claims she watched on in shock as an agitated Laundrie began arguing with a waitress. Petito was with him at the time, she said.
While she said she couldn't hear what words were being exchanged between Laundrie and the woman, she believed the spat was either over the bill or about money.
Angelo described Laundrie's body language as "aggressive" and said that he left and returned to the restaurant around four times, continuing the conflict.
At one stage, Petito came inside and apologized for Laundrie’s behavior, Angelo alleged.
CHILLING ENCOUNTER
"I have chills right now," Nina Celie Angelo said, recounting the incident.
"It's crazy because it wasn't just like we passed them on the street -- it was a full-blown incident."
Angelo also uploaded a lengthy account of her alleged encounter with Laundrie and Petito to her Instagram page on Wednesday.
Around four and a half hours after she claims to have seen the couple, bloggers Jenn and Kyle Bethune passed Petito and Laundrie's van at a campsite north of Grand Teton National Park.
They described the van as looking as if it had been "abandoned".
"We were going to stop and say hi ... but the van was completely dark. There was nobody there, so we decided to continue on our way."
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August 27 is also around the time Petito last made contact with her friends or family.
Her remains were found inside Grand Teton on Sunday, just north of Jackson Hole. The nature of her death has been preliminarily declared a homicide though a cause of death is yet to be determined.
Police are currently searching for Laundrie, who was last seen on September 14 by his parents who claim he went hiking at a nature reserve near Venice, Florida but never returned.
Investigators weren't informed of his disappearance until three days later.
BODYCAM JOGGED MEMORY
Angelo, a photographer, said she didn't think much of her August 27 encounter inside the Merry Piglets until weeks later.
Part of the reason, she said, was because Hurricane Ida struck New Orleans shortly after they returned home, upending her's and her boyfriend's lives.
However, after police in Utah released bodycam footage of a domestic dispute between Laundrie and Gabby on August 12, Angela said something clicked inside her boyfriend's head.
"He goes, ‘Nina, that was the couple fighting at the restaurant,’" she recalled.
"And it stopped me in my tracks. I felt like the blood left my body. I was like, 'Oh my God, I completely forgot about that incident.'"
When contacted for comment, a manager at Merry Piglets said the eatery is incredibly busy during the summer months and that they couldn't specifically recall the incident.
In a later statement to CNN, a manager for the restaurant said they did see "an incident" in the restaurant that day and reported it to the FBI on Wednesday.
The manager declined to give the network her name or describe what happened. She added that the restaurant did not have surveillance footage of the altercation.
'1000% SURE'
Angelo's boyfriend, Matthew England, told Fox News he has no doubt it was Gabby and Laundrie that they saw.
He said the bodycam footage of the pair matched the mannerisms and body language that they witnesses first-hand.
Laundrie was also wearing clothes England said he recognized from the video and "looked kind of like he had been living out in a van for a little while."
"I spent the last three or four days really kind of racking my brain," he said. "And I woke up this morning and went to Facebook, and there was that video with the police on it, right away. That was the couple."
He added: "I would bet $10 million, I’m 1,000 percent sure that was him and that was her."
Reflecting on the alleged encounter, he described Gabby as appearing "visibly upset" with Laundrie as he barked at wait staff inside the restaurant.
He said it didn't appear as though Laundrie was on drugs, and insisted he "wasn't screaming."
However, he was acting aggressively, England claimed, with a number of staff including a waitress, hostess, and a manager - all of whom were women.
England provided Fox with a credit card statement that showed a payment for $60.88 at the Merry Piglets on August 27.
The couple has reported the encounter to the FBI, they said.
SEARCH FOR LAUNDRIE CONTINUES
Federal investigators are still searching for 23-year-old Laundrie, who is so far only publicly considered a "person of interest" in Gabby's death.
He returned home to Florida alone in the couple's van on September 1, immediately retaining an attorney and refusing to cooperate with the police.
Gabby's mother said she pleaded with Laundrie for answers about where her daughter was but received no reply. She then reported Gabby missing to the police on September 11.
Three days later, on September 14, Laundrie vanished from his parent's home after telling them he was going hiking in the 24,000-acre Carlton nature reserve.
A days-long search of the reserve has yielded no trace of Laundrie.
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On Wednesday, an underwater recovery team was summoned to Carlton Reserve as part of the search.
No further information has yet been released.
Gabby Petito timeline
Gabby Petito, 22, was last seen on August 24, leaving a hotel in Utah. Here is a timeline of Gabby Petito's disappearance:
- June 2021 - Gabby Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie set off on a cross-country trip across the US.
- July 4 - Gabby posts photos of herself barefoot in Gove County, Kansas.
- July 8 - Gabby posts photos of herself at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
- July 18 - Gabby and Brian post photos of themselves at Utah's Zion National Park.
- August 12 - Body camera footage was released in September showing an encounter Brian and Gabby had with police in Utah. Police confirmed that no significant injuries were reported.
- August 19 - Gabby and Brian post a video on their YouTube channel chronicling their trip. The video receives more than 200,000 views.
- August 24 - Gabby is last spotted leaving a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- September 1 - Brian returns home to Florida without Gabby.
- September 11 - Gabby's parents report her missing to Suffolk County police.
- September 15 - Florida's North Port police announce Brian is a person of interest in the case. He is not charged with any crime.
- September 16 - Utah police release body camera footage of the police encounter with Brian and Gabby.
- September 17 - Brian's parents say they have not seen their son in a couple of days.
- September 18 - Police announce they were searching Carlton Reserve in Florida for Brian. Police announce they have not found anything.
- September 19 - Authorities in Wyoming say they found a body in Grand Teton National Park. The FBI announces the body was believed to be Gabby's but a full forensic identification needs to be completed first to confirm.
- September 20 - Police execute a search warrant on Laundrie's home, seizing his silver Mustang and a hard drive that may contain "evidence relevant to proving that a felony has been committed."
- September 21 - Officials announce they will be conducting an autopsy on the remains found in Wyoming to confirm whether or not they belong to Gabby. Police also resumed their search for Laundrie, this time on the Venice side of Carlton Reserve.
- September 21 - The FBI announced the body found in Wyoming was identified as Gabby's. The cause of death was not yet revealed.
- September 21 - The Teton County Coroner's office said Gabby's official cause of death was still pending but the initial manner of death is homicide.
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