Petito and Laundrie

New Witness Reports Giving Hitchhiking Brian Laundrie a Ride

A second woman has come forward to say that she picked up a hitchiking Brian Laundrie on August 29 and that he tried to “get out of the moving car” when she got to the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area, where he’d asked to be taken.

The first woman, Miranda Baker, posted a series of TikTok videos saying she and her boyfriend picked him up at about 5:30 p.m. on that day but dropped him off a few minutes later when he became unnerved about their destination.

Norma Jean Jalovec told Fox News that she realized after seeing Baker’s videos that she, too, had picked up Laundrie, about 45 minutes after Baker’s reported ride.

August 29 was two days after Laundrie’s girlfriend Gabby Petito was heard from. Her body was found in the Spread Creek camping area on Sunday.

Jalovec said that she “spontaneously” decided to attend mass at the Chapel of the Sacred Heart in Grand Teton National Park on August 29 at 5 p.m. After the service, she drove past Jackson Lake Dam — where Baker said she’d dropped Laundrie off when he “freaked out” about going to Jackson — and saw a man, walking backward with his thumb out.

“I picked him up … ” Jelovec said. ” …  Something just said, ‘Hey, ask him where he’s going.'”

He asked her if she was going to Jackson, and when she said she wasn’t, he asked if she could take him to Spread Creek. On the 20-minute drive, he told her he had a fiance, had been camping near Snake River and had seen elk and moose but no bison, similar to his conversation with Baker. She asked if he needed gas money, and he replied no.

When she arrived at the entrance to the Spread Creek camping area, Laundrie told her to drop him off at the gate. Jalovec told FOX that she told him she could drive him inside, and that’s when he tried to get out while her vehicle was still moving.

Jalovec cracked a joke about trying to impress his fiance by hiking in rather than hitching a ride, but his response was to insist on being let out of the vehicle.

Jalovec, like Baker, said that she has spoken with police about her encounter.

The van Laundrie and Petito had been traveling in since July 2 was seen on August 27 by travel vloggers Red, White and Bethune, who said the vehicle was dark and no one was around as they passed it. An arrest warrant issued for Laundrie on Thursday says that he used a debit card and PIN numbers to fraudulently access two Capitol One bank accounts between August 30 and September 1, after Petito’s death, as CrimeOnline previously reported.

Laundrie arrived back at the home he and Petito shared with his parents in North Point, Florida, on September 1. Laundrie didn’t tell Petito’s family that he was back and without her; they filed a missing person report for her on September 11, after learning he had returned.

Laundries parents kept him away from police, who said they couldn’t force him to talk with them and had no reason to arrest him, but they called police on September 17 to say that he was missing, having left home on September 11.

Petito’s death has been ruled a homicide. Laundrie has been named a person of interest in her disappearance but is not, so far, a suspect in her murder.

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[Featured image: Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie/Instagram]