TikToker Miranda Baker (pictured) said she and her boyfriend were at Grand Teton National Park in Colter Bay, Wyoming, on August 29 when Laundrie approached the couple and asked them for a ride at 5.30pm
A TikToker from Wisconsin has claimed she picked up Brian Laundrie, the person of interest in Gabby Petito’s disappearance, as he was hitchhiking alone five days after his girlfriend went missing and one day before she last texted her mother.
In the video posted to the social media site Miranda Baker said she and her boyfriend were at Grand Teton National Park in Colter Bay, Wyoming, on August 29 when Laundrie approached the couple and asked them for a ride at 5.30pm.
‘He approached us asking for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson and we were going to Jackson that night. So I said, ya know, “hop in” and he hopped in the back of my Jeep,’ Baker explained.
She noted Laundrie, 23, was wearing ‘a backpack, a long sleeve, pants and hiking boots’ and said that before he got in the car he offered to pay the couple $200 to give him a 10-mile ride.
‘So that was kind of weird,’ she said.
‘He approached us asking for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson and we were going to Jackson that night. So I said, ya know, “hop in” and he hopped in the back of my Jeep,’ Baker explained. She called the entire interaction with Brian Laundrie ‘a weird situation’
Baker supposedly picked up Laundrie (left), the person of interest in Gabby Petito’s (right) disappearance, as he was hitchhiking alone five days after his girlfriend went missing and one day before she last texted her mother
Bake noted Laundrie, 23, was wearing ‘a backpack, a long sleeve, pants and hiking boots’ and said that before he got in the car he offered to pay the couple $200 to give him a 10-mile ride
Baker explained that her, her boyfriend and Laundrie ‘then proceeded to make small talk’ and found out he had been camping for multiple days without his fiancée.
‘He did say he had a fiancée and that she was working on their social media page back at their van,’ Baker said.
In a later video she added that Laundrie supposedly told her he and Petito, 22, were not camping on a regulated campsite through the national park. ‘They were camping basically out in the middle of nowhere along Snake River,’ she said.
Baker recounted the alleged story Laundrie told her and her boyfriend: ‘This is key information. He said that he had hiked for days along Snake River but looking at his backpack, it wasn’t full.
‘And he said all he had was a tarp to sleep on. And, if you’d think you’re going camping for days on end you’d want food and a tent and he had none of that.’
She added: ‘He had scruff but he didn’t look dirty for someone who was camping for multiple days. He didn’t look dirty, he didn’t smell dirty, so that part was kind of weird.’
Then, when Baker told Laundrie they were driving to Jackson Hole he supposedly ‘freaked out’ and asked them to pull over and said: ‘Nope, I need to get out right now.’
Petito was last seen on August 24 leaving a hotel with Laundrie in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the couple’s cross-country campervan trip
Petito set out on a cross-country trip July 2 with her boyfriend in the couple’s 2012 Ford Transit van. Brian posted this photo of the couple on Instagram on July 16
Baker said they pulled over at the Jackson Dam in Grand Teton National Park, which she noted was not very far from where they originally picked Laundrie up.
He allegedly hurried out of the car and told the couple he would find someone else to hitchhike with.
‘We dropped him off at 6.09pm on August 29,’ Baker said, adding that she hopes her videos would find someone who could also help solve the case and find Petito.
She called the entire interaction with Laundrie ‘a weird situation’.
In her latest video she addressed skeptics and said that the story she detailed in the previous videos posted to TikTok she also told detectives and the FBI. ‘I am actively in contact with these people,’ she said.
Her allegations come five days after Petito was last seen in public – on August 24 – when she and Laundrie checked out of a Fairfield Inn hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah.
On August 29 Baker only saw Laundrie. One day later Petito’s mother Nicole Schmidt received a curious text from her daughter that read: ‘No service in Yosemite.’
The mother refused to disclose the contents of her daughter’s texts but told DailyMail.com: ‘That text was NOT from Gabby I know it!’
She believes Laundrie may have sent the message from her phone possibly to mislead her family and investigators as to her whereabouts.
A map shows the last known movements of Petito and Laundrie along their cross-country road trip which began July 2
Laundrie was named a person of interest and is refusing to cooperate with cop. The couple with their campervan
Attorney Richard Stafford on Thursday read out an emotional letter from Petito’s family begging the Laundries to cooperate, saying ‘we believe you know the location of where Brian left Gabby’
The letter also confirmed reports that the young couple were engaged to be married and suggested the Laundries were ‘so happy’ that the two were planning to spend their lives together
Laundrie returned home to Florida from the couple’s road trip alone on September 1 – two days after hitchhiking with Baker and 10 days before Petito’s family reported her missing.
If the couple were in fact together in Yosemite on August 30, that would mean Brian drove over 3,000 miles within two days to arrive in Florida on September 1.
Now police have officially named Brian Laundrie a ‘person of interest’ in their inquiry into her mystery disappearance as he refuses to cooperate, although they say there is no evidence any crime has been committed.
Cops in North Port, Florida, said: ‘Brian Laundrie is a person of interest in this case. As of now, Brian has not made himself available to be interviewed by investigators or has provided any helpful details.’
Brian’s family refused to let authorities speak to their son when the 2012 Ford van was seized from their property late on September 11.
Most recently, Brian Laundrie’s sister broke the Laundrie family silence about the disappearance of her brother’s girlfriend and said her and her family ‘obviously want Gabby to be found safe’.
‘All I want is for her to come home safe and sound and this to be just a big misunderstanding,’ she said in an interview with ABC News.
Brian Laundrie’s sister Cassie Laundrie (pictured) has broken her silence about the disappearance of her brother’s girlfriend and said her and her family ‘obviously want Gabby to be found safe’ just after Brian was named a ‘person of interest’ in her vanishing
Policed released a photo of the Ford van that was seized from the Laundrie property on September 11, the day Petito’s family reported her middding
Cassie’s interview came the same day the Petito family penned an emotional letter begging the Laundries to help them find their missing daughter and suggesting that the family might be withholding information about where she is.
The heartbreaking letter was read aloud by family attorney Richard Stafford in a press conference held in Petito’s hometown of Long Island on Thursday.
‘We understand you are going through a difficult time and your instinct to protect your son is strong.
‘We ask you to put yourselves in our shoes. We haven’t been able to sleep or eat and our lives are falling apart,’ the Petitos wrote.
They added: ‘As a parent, how can you let us go through this pain and not help us? As a parent, how could you put Gabby’s younger brothers and sisters through this?’
The letter also confirmed reports that the young couple were engaged to be married and suggested the Laundries were ‘so happy’ that the two were planning to spend their lives together.
During the press conference Stafford would not provide further details about Petito’s suspicious final text message to her family and refused to comment on the body camera footage from the August 12 incident.
New bodycam footage emerged Wednesday showing police being called to an incident involving the couple in Moab, Utah, on August 12 – 13 days before Petito was last heard from. A tearful Petito is seen in the back of the police car
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’
In the newly-released bodycam video, an emotional Petito is seen with tears streaming down her face telling officers the couple ‘have been fighting all morning’ and admitting that she slapped him.
Petito said she suffers from OCD and anxiety, with both her and Laundrie saying she was stressed because of the YouTube blog they were working on to document the doomed cross-country trip.
Laundrie was seen with scratches on his face and arm which he tells an officer were caused when Petito ‘was trying to get the keys from me’ and ‘hit me with her phone’.
When an officer asks Petito if her boyfriend 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 said they were going to separate the couple for the night.
At the press conference Stafford revealed the couple’s cross country road trip included plans to visit Oregon on October 2, meaning Laundrie’s premature return to his family’s Florida home on September 1 would have seemed odd or unexpected.
‘The family is devastated. Every day that this goes on, they get more and more desperate. They’re at the point that this desperation as turned into anger,’ the family lawyer added.
‘They know that the Laundries know where their daughter is. And they will not tell them. That’s infuriating.’
At the press conference Stafford revealed the couple’s cross country road trip included plans to visit Oregon on October 2, meaning Laundrie’s premature return to his family’s Florida home on September 1 would have seemed odd or unexpected
‘No service in Yosemite,’ reads the text from Petito’s cell phone, sent August 30 to her mother Nichole Schmidt, DailyMail.com can reveal. Her uncle Mike Schmidt posted this handwritten timeline of events
Nicole Schmidt, of Long Island, New York, gave a teary-eyed interview to reporters about her daughter Gabby Petitio. Schmidt told DailyMail.com she doesn’t beliece the last text she received from Gabby’s phone was actually sent by her daughter
Stafford also said the Laundries had already retained legal representation by the time police came knocking on their door a week later.
Petito was last seen on August 24 leaving a hotel with Laundrie in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the couple’s cross-country campervan trip which they started early July.
On August 25 she made her final call to her mom, telling her she and Laundrie had traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. She was reported missing by her family on September 11 after they hadn’t heard from her in 13 days.
Meanwhile, Laundrie – who was named a person of interest in the case Wednesday – returned to the couple’s home in North Port, Florida, on September 1 with the van but without Petito, police said.
Earlier this week Petito’s father said the main priority must be ‘to make sure we get my daughter home first’ and then ‘we’ll start worrying about’ her boyfriend, who had already been named a ‘person of interest’ in her disappearance.
Joe Petito told Fox & Friends First on Thursday that 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,’ 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