NORTH PORT, Fla. (WFLA) – Could video of Gabby Petito’s van from late August in a Wyoming camping area have helped authorities recover human remains that resemble the missing 22-year-old woman?
“If you were in the area of Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area, as identified in the attached map, during the timeframe of August 27-30, 2021, and saw Gabby and/or her boyfriend or their vehicle, please provide that information to the FBI,” FBI Denver tweeted Saturday.
Over the weekend, the “Red, White and Bethune” family travel bloggers from Florida reviewed their video from the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area around 6 p.m. on Aug. 27.
“The van looked like it was pretty much kind of abandoned,” Kyle Bethune said, narrating their Go Pro video driving through Bridger-Teton National Forest camping area. “Just kind of neat to see a Florida plate on the other side of the country, its not something you see all the time”
Kyle and Jenn Bethune say they contacted the FBI before publicly sharing their video on YouTube and other social media pages.
“This is most definitely Gabby Petito’s Ford transit van,” Kyle said in the video.
“And I slowed it down so you can possibly see it better,” Jenn added.
8 On Your Side reached out to FBI Denver to find out whether the travel bloggers video helped lead search teams to the body recovered Sunday in the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area.
“Our official statements are posted on Twitter (@FBIDenver) and we do not comment on individual submissions,” an FBI Denver spokesperson said in an email.
According to the North Port Police search warrant for the hard drive recovered from Petito’s van, there had not been any sightings of Gabby since Aug. 27.
The detectives write that Gabby’s mother Nichole Schmidt received an “odd text” message from her daughter’s phone on Aug. 27 that read, “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls.”
Schmidt told police she never calls her grandfather Stan and the strange message made her “concerned that someone was wrong with her daughter,” according to the warrant.
The warrant also states that from conversations Schmidt had with Gabby during the road trip, “there appeared to be more and more tensions between her and (Brian) Laundrie.”
This first court document released in relation to the disappearance of Gabby Petito reveals Laundrie returned to North Port the morning of Sept. 1. Per the license plate reader at the Sumter Boulevard exit off I-75, Petito’s white Ford camper van entered the city at 10:26 a.m.
Law enforcement is still trying to track down Laundrie after his parents reported him missing on Friday.