The mother of missing ‘van-life’ woman Gabby Petito has blasted her fiancé’s sister for claiming she loves Gabby like a sibling, yet failing to get her own brother to share information about her disappearance.
‘Instead of just saying Gabby’s like a sister and that you hope she’s found, how about beg and plead to your brother, from sister to brother, to tell us where she is,’ Nichole Schmidt told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Cassie Laundrie became the first member of her family to speak publicly since Gabby was reported missing, but offered no specifics about her brother’s actions.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Friday morning, Cassie told the news station: ‘Obviously me and my family want Gabby to be found safe.
‘She’s like a sister and my children love her, and all I want is for her to come home safe and found and this to be just a big misunderstanding,’ she added.
But to Schmidt, the comments are particularly frustrating to hear because Cassie’s brother Brian, who had been traveling with Gabby on a cross-country road trip when he returned home without her on September 1, has remained silent about her disappearance.
The 23-year-old, who was living with Gabby at his family’s home in North Port, Florida, has refused to speak with investigators and cooperate with the probe, as have his parents.
Gabby Petito’s mother Nichole Schmidt (pictured together left) slammed Brian Laundrie’s sister after she gave an interview claiming she loves Gabby ‘like a sister’ but failing to get her brother to share information on her disappearance
Cassie Laundrie (pictured) became the first member of the Laundrie family to break her silence about Gabby’s disappearance in an interview with ABC News that aired Friday morning
‘What’s that statement do? It does nothing,’ Schmidt added. ‘She might have been out of the loop from the beginning. Who knows what the parents kept from family members.
‘But instead of saying that, if these people supposedly loved Gabby, if she’s like a sister, if your kids love her so much, why aren’t you begging them to talk?’
Cassie told Good Morning America that she has not yet spoken to her brother, who was named a person of interest earlier this week, and that she has done all she can to assist in the case.
‘I haven’t been able to talk to him. I wish I could talk to him. I’ve cooperated every way that I can,’ she added.
‘I wish I had information or I would give more. This is all I have. I gave it to the police.’
She described her brother as a ‘wonderful uncle’ and as someone who has ‘always been there’ when she or Gabby needed him.
Schmidt also had strong words for Steven Bertolino, the lawyer representing Laundrie and his parents, specifically over his decision to speak out about a possible link between her daughter’s disappearance and a recent double homicide involving a store worker at a Utah co-op where Gabby, had a fight with her fiancé.
Police in Utah on Thursday revealed they are investigating a possible connection, prompting the lawyer to offer his two cents.
‘Whether or not these two cases deserve to be linked will be determined at some point in the future,’ Bertolino said in a statement.
Cassie (left) says she has not yet spoken to her brother, who was named a person of interest earlier this week, and that if she had more information she would share it
Schmidt has issued several desperate pleas for the Laundries to cooperate with the investigation into Gabby’s disappearance, but the family has refused to help or even reply to her messages
Gabby’s stepmother Tara Petito (left) and father Joe Petito urged the Laundries to tell them where their daughter is in an emotional press conference with police in North Port, Florida Thursday.
Gabby and her younger brother TJ Schmidt. Their mother told DailyMail.com she hasn’t been able to sleep or eat since her daughter disappeared
‘I don’t know anything about any kind of link,’ Schmidt said in response. ‘Obviously, they were in Moab at the same time as that couple that was killed. That’s not our concern now.
‘Let those police do their job figuring out how those poor people were killed. But for the lawyer to even comment on that, he’s just trying to throw people off the track of getting them to talk about Gabby.
‘Let’s focus on the family telling us where Gabby is,’ she added. ‘All I’m concerned about it is the fact I know 100 percent Brian was the last person with her.’
Nicole said her daughter’s disappearance is taking a tremendous toll on her and her family, as they struggle to find answers.
Her husband, Jim Schmidt, is now out in Wyoming, where her daughter was last seen, searching for her. She has remained home in Blue Point, Long Island.
‘I’m not sleeping, I’m barely eating and I’m just in a lot of pain right now. A lot of pain,’ she said. ‘I’m trying not to lose hope but it’s hard.’
She’s also finding it hard to believe the system protects a person like Brian, allowing him a right to remain silent when her daughter is likely in peril.
‘The fact that there’s a constitution that protects him, it’s making me sick because he’s home safe while my daughter is probably not safe,’ she said.
‘The FBI and police is trying, they are doing their job,’ she said. ‘But I’m thinking long term. There’s got to be law changes for situations like this. I will fight to end of earth not only for Gabby but for anyone else that ends up in this situation.
‘If somebody is known to be the last person with a missing person, then they shouldn’t have a right to not talk. They should lose that right altogether. This can’t be allowed.’
On Thursday it was reported that police in Utah are investigating a potential link between Gabby’s disappearance and the murder of a woman who worked at the Moab co-op where Gabby and Brian had an explosive fight on August 12.
Six days after Petito and Laundrie had a physical altercation at Moonflower Community Cooperative, store worker Kylen Schulte, 24, and her wife Crystal Turner, 38, were found dead and partially undressed where they had been camping
Police in Utah are investigating a potential link between ‘van-life’ woman Gabby Petito’s disappearance and the murder of a woman who worked at the Moab co-op where Petito and fiancé Brian Laundrie had an explosive fight. Around the time Schulte and Turner were killed in Utah, police across the state line in San Miguel County, Colorado warned campers after they found more than 30 weapons at a man’s campsite in Telluride
Petito and Laundrie had started a fight at the Moonflower co-op, before they checked out and continued fighting in their van and police was called
Six days after Petito and Laundrie had a physical altercation at Moonflower Community Cooperative, store worker Kylen Schulte, 24, and her wife Crystal Turner, 38, were found dead and partially undressed where they had been camping.
Schulte and Turner told friends about a ‘creepy man’ that had been bothering them and that ‘if something happened to them, that they were murdered.’ On August 18, their bodies were found at a campsite in the La Sal Mountains, an hour away from Moab.
Around the time Schulte and Turner were killed in Utah, police across the state line in San Miguel County, Colorado warned campers after they found more than 30 weapons at a man’s campsite in Telluride, just over two hours away from Moab.
Police said his whereabouts were unknown and it is unclear if police eventually arrested him.
Now police in Moab and North Port, Florida, where Petito and Laundrie lived, are looking into possible links between the the double murder and Petito’s missing person case.
‘The Grand County Sheriff’s Office has been in contact with Florida authorities and we are actively looking into any connection between the Gabby Petito missing person case and the double homicide that occurred in Grand County,’ the sheriff told FOX in a statement.
North Port Chief of Police said: ‘We provided them with whatever information we could. They don’t have any [murder] suspect information right now. They told us that they’re looking at everything at this point.’
The arsenal found in Telluride included knives, hatchets, a cross-bow and several swords.
Schulte and Turner told friends about a ‘creepy man’ that had been bothering them and that ‘if something happened to them, that they were murdered’
The pair was found dead in a nearby creek, partially undressed and with multiple gunshot wounds to the bodies
The arsenal found in Telluride included knives, hatchets, a cross-bow and several swords. ‘In light of the past week’s double homicide of campers outside Moab, l want to caution people to be aware of their surroundings,’ the sheriff office said at the time. Police did not release the identity of the man citing ‘pre-trial publicity’
‘In light of the past week’s double homicide of campers outside Moab, l want to caution people to be aware of their surroundings,’ the sheriff office said at the time.
Police did not release the identity of the man citing ‘pre-trial publicity,’ and as of August 23 his whereabout were unknown.
‘The individual has been arrested three times in the Norwood and Telluride areas since July 1st for charges including weapons offenses, burglary of a local laundromat, possession of meth, trespassing, and theft.
‘The judge has repeatedly released this man from jail on PR bonds over the objections of the District Attorney’s office,’ San Miguel County Sheriff shared on Twitter.
Petito and Laundrie got into a physical fight at the Moonflower co-op on August 12, a day before Schulte and Turner were last seen leaving a bar in Moab.
Police bodycam footage from the incident released earlier this week showed an emotional Gabby telling cops why she slapped her fiancé after they were pulled over in their van.
The altercation took place 13 days before Gabby’s final phone call to her family letting them know she was at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
The video shows the 22-year-old with tears streaming down her face, telling officers she ‘was trying to get him to stop telling me to calm down’ and admitting the couple ‘have been fighting all morning.’
She also reveals that she suffers from OCD and anxiety, and both she and Laundrie said she was stressed about the YouTube blog they were working on their doomed cross-country trip.
Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Gabby ‘was trying to get the keys from me’ and ‘hit me with her phone’.
He later said she was angry with him because of his dirty feet. When an officer asks Gabby if Laundrie hit her, she replies ‘I guess’ and makes a grabbing motion on her chin.
Laundrie admits he ‘pushed her’ during the altercation.
The cops determine Petito was ‘the primary aggressor’ and say they are separating the couple for the night.
A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car. Laundrie admits he ‘pushed her’ during the altercation and cops determine Petito was ‘the primary aggressor’
Emotional new police bodycam footage has revealed the moment Utah cops asked missing ‘van-life’ woman Gabby Petito why she slapped her fiancé Brian Laundrie in a dramatic incident 13 days before she disappeared on their cross-country trip
Laundrie is seen with scratches on his face which he tells an officer were caused when Petito ‘was trying to get the keys from me’ and ‘hit me with her phone’
Laundrie shows the officers his hands during the incident on August 12 – two weeks before his girlfriend vanished
An incident report revealed officers received a call of a ‘possible domestic violence’ incident involving the couple near the co-op around 4:30pm.
The statement from Brian Laundrie’s attorney:
‘Many people are wondering why Mr. Laundrie would not make a statement or speak with law enforcement in the face of Ms. Petito’s absence.
‘In my experience, intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this and the warning that ‘any statement made will be used against you’ is true, regardless of whether my client had anything to do with Ms. Petito’s disappearance.
‘As such, on the advice of counsel Mr. Laundrie is not speaking on the matter.
‘I have been informed that the North Port, Florida police have named Brian Laundrie as a ‘person of interest’ in this matter.
‘This formality has not really changed the circumstances of Mr. Laundrie being the focus of attention of law enforcement and Mr. Laundrie will continue to remain silent on the advice of counsel.’
The responding officer noted that the couple admitted that ‘issues’ had been ‘building’ up between them over the last couple days.
On Thursday, North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said at a press conference that the case was still being treated as a missing person’s enquiry, and that there is so far no evidence of criminality in her disappearance.
‘Right now, we are investigating a missing person case,’ he said.
Garrison, joined by Petito’s dad, said police were aware of Laundrie’s current location but cannot bring him in for questioning ‘right now.’
‘Two people went on a trip, one person returned. And that person that returned isn’t providing us any information,’ he said.
Garrison added that it was Laundrie’s ‘constitutional right’ not to speak with law enforcement but said his lawyer had handed over some property they requested from him.
Laundrie returned to North Port, Florida alone in the couple’s camper van – which has been seized by police – on on September 1, ten days before Gabby was reported missing.
On Wednesday police officially named Laundrie a ‘person of interest’ in her mystery disappearance as he refused to cooperate with their investigation.
Laundrie’s attorney released a statement saying he is not speaking to police or making a statement ‘on the advice of counsel’ because ‘intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this.’
Petito’s father Joe told Fox & Friends First Thursday that the focus must be ‘to make sure we get my daughter home first’ and then ‘start worrying about Brian’ later.
‘I don’t care what happens to him right now,’ he said. ‘That can’t be my primary focus if he’s going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter’s out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don’t give two craps about him.’
‘I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.’
Joe said learning about the August 12 incident and Laundrie being named a person of interest, had left him feeling ‘it’s not what you thought it was.’
However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.
‘It’s not what you thought it was,’ he said.
‘August 12, the person of interest… I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don’t have Gabby.
‘I want to care about finding my daughter first. That’s my first objective.’
A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2
According to the document, cops were called to a local business in Moab, Utah on August 12, after a witness reported seeing the couple ‘arguing over a phone’ outside their van
In his report, responding officer Daniel Scott Robbins said he pulled the couple over as they were driving towards Arches National Park and noticed Gabby ‘crying uncontrollably’ in the passenger seat
The above map illustrates the places Petito and Laundrie visited since the start of the trip leaving New York on July 2 to when she last spoke to her family on August 25 from Grand Teton National Park
Police on Tuesday revealed they responded to an ‘incident’ involving 22-year-old ‘van-life woman’ Gabby Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, two weeks before she was last seen
Addressing reports of the incident on Wednesday, Gabby’s mother, Nichole Schmidt told DailyMail.com: ‘It’s irrelevant.
‘Two people traveling together with each other 24 hours a day, it’s not going to be perfect, it was an argument, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.’
The family released a statement Wednesday condemning Laundrie as the ‘one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help.’
‘The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives. Their beautiful twenty-two year old daughter is missing and the one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help. Brian Laundrie was traveling with Gabby in the Grand Teton – Yellowstone area. They were traveling together in Gabby’s 2012 Ford Transit van. That is where we believe Gabby was last seen.
‘Brian is refusing to tell Gabby’s family where he last saw her. Brian is also refusing to explain why he left Gabby all alone and drove her van to Florida. These are critical questions that require immediate answers.
‘The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not ‘remain in the background’ but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life. How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located?’ they said.
Schmidt said she sent her daughter’s fiancé and his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, desperate texts looking for her on September 10 and 11, but was ignored.
Schmidt said they’d been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island. ‘They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating’
Gabby set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with fiancé Brian Laundrie in the couple’s 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16 at Zion National Park
‘I texted Brian’s mom that I was trying to get in touch with Gabby. I also texted Brian. I got no replies,’ Schmidt told DailyMail.com.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ she said. ‘I felt something was off and I needed to get her reported missing immediately.’
She went to report Gabby missing later that day but police initially blew her off. The next day, she was allowed to file a report with the Suffolk County police department.
Schmidt described how Brian’s parents had been warm and welcoming to Gabby during their relationship. She recalled a time when his mother even knitted her future daughter-in-law gifts for Christmas.
‘She loved her like a daughter,’ Schmidt said. ‘As far as I knew they were all very caring and treated her like one of the family. His mom was so excited about the engagement.’
The distraught mother also clarified that Gabby and Brian had been engaged, but decided to call it off and go back to just dating because they felt they were too young for marriage.
‘I think they kind of put that on hold just because they felt it was a little fast. They were excited at first, but then they were like, let’s just wait, we’re very young. So they were really just boyfriend and girlfriend,’ she said.
She said they’d been a couple for a little over two years, but met growing up in Long Island.
‘They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating,’ she said.
Brian Laundrie’s parents Christopher and Roberta refused to let police speak with their son. He returned to their home on North Port,Florida on September 1
Above is the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, where Brian Laundrie returned in the couple’s van without Gabby after their trip
In light of the disappearance, Schmidt says she’s now viewing everything under a new lens. ‘Maybe the relationship wasn’t what I thought,’ she said.
She’s also questioning Brian’s trip back to Florida in August to help his father move their things into a storage unit. She wonders why it was necessary to move Gabby’s things during their road trip and what became of her stuff.
‘Where are her things?’ she asked. When asked why Brian chose to lawyer up, she replied, ‘You know I wish I knew that answer, why.’
‘I know that’s the reason this story is so sought after is because it’s odd. The police have said it’s very odd. We don’t know what’s going on, and where is my daughter. I just want to find her.’
Her last Instagram post on August 25, shows her visiting the Monarch Wall in Ogden, Utah with the caption ‘Happy Halloween’. The pair were heading from Ogden to Yellowstone National Park, just north of Grand Teton.
Gabby Petito’s father says the main priority is to get her home safely – and then he’ll start worrying about why her fiancé refuses to speak to cops: ‘The one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair’
Gaby Petito’s father has said the focus must be ‘to make sure we get my daughter home first’ and then ‘we’ll start worrying about’ her fiancé Brian Laundrie later – after he was named a ‘person of interest’ in her disappearance and is still refusing to cooperate with police.
Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn’t ‘give two craps’ about Laundrie and slammed him for ‘sitting home in his lazy boy chair’ instead of helping in the search for his missing girlfriend.
‘I don’t care what happens to him right now,’ said Petito’s father.
‘That can’t be my primary focus if he’s going to sit in the comfort of his home, you know, and get home cooked meals, why my daughter’s out, you know, God knows where, you know, I don’t give two craps about him.
‘I got to be out there to help her, because the one person who is supposed to be leading the charge is sitting home in his lazy boy chair, you know, not talking to anybody.’
He added: ‘I want to worry about getting my daughter home first and then we’ll start worrying about Brian.’
Gaby Petito’s father has said the focus must be ‘to make sure we get my daughter home first’ and then ‘we’ll start worrying about’ her fiancé Brian Laundrie later – after he was named a ‘person of interest’ in her disappearance and is still refusing to cooperate with police
Joe also hit out at Laundrie’s family who have so far shielded him from law enforcement.
Police said they attempted to speak with Laundrie at his family property at the weekend but his parents refused to allow officers from doing so.
‘It must be very difficult for the Laundrie family to have their son home while we’re looking for ours so I’m not too concerned with how they’re feeling,’ said Joe.
Petito’s family issued a statement Wednesday slamming Laundrie for his refusal to cooperate saying the ‘one person that can help find Gabby refuses to help’ and urging him to break his silence about what happened.
An attorney for Laundrie meanwhile said his client is not speaking ‘on the advice of counsel’ because it may be used against him as ‘intimate partners are often the first person law enforcement focus their attention on in cases like this’.
John said the new developments in the case, including Laundrie being named a person of interest and the release of the police report from the August 12 ‘domestic incident’ involving the couple, had left him feeling ‘it’s not what you thought it was.’
However, he said he just wants to keep the focus on finding his daughter.
‘It’s not what you thought it was,’ he said.
Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First Thursday he doesn’t ‘give two craps’ about Laundrie and slammed him for ‘sitting home in his lazy boy chair’ instead of helping in the search for his missing girlfriend
‘August 12, the person of interest… I get it from a legal side of it but from a family side we don’t have Gabby.
‘I want to care about finding my daughter first. That’s my first objective.’
Petito’s father said it was ‘heart-wrenching’ that he is unable to hug his daughter, saying she ‘needs help and she is nowhere to be found.’
‘It’s heart-wrenching,’ he said.
‘That’s my only daughter. Right now I can’t give her a hug and she needs it, she needs help and she is nowhere to be found.’
He added: ‘I don’t know where do you even begin. We’re just doing what we can and it’s just difficult.
‘She needs help and we got to get it to her.’
Joe said he didn’t want to speculate on what has happened to his daughter because ‘when I put scenarios in my head it doesn’t end well.’
‘I can’t focus on that,’ he said, adding that he was hopeful she was ‘just stuck somewhere’.
‘If I think of any other type of scenario in my head, I’m going to be on the floor so I can’t do that,’ he said.
‘I got to focus that she is hurt and needs our help and we’ve got to find her as fast as we can.’
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