A park ranger says she tried telling Gabby Petito her relationship with Brian Laundrie seemed "toxic" after being called to a domestic incident between the two.
Melissa Hulls, the visitor and resource protection supervisor at Arches National Park, had approached a sobbing Gabby, 22, to console her following an argument with her fiancee on August 12.
“I was probably more candid with her than I should’ve been,” she told Deseret News.
“I was imploring with her to reevaluate the relationship, asking her if she was happy in the relationship with him, and basically saying this was an opportunity for her to find another path, to make a change in her life.”
Moab Police Department in Utah were responding to a 911 call by a man who reported seeing a "gentleman slapping a girl", according to a transcript published by ABC News.
The man goes on to say the couple "ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her hops in the car. And they drove off."
When officers arrived at the scene, they found the couple's van and pulled them over.
It comes after the FBI revealed in a press conference that remains matching Gabby's description had been found at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Authorities said the remains were "consistent" with the missing woman but that a full forensic identification was yet to be completed.
No cause of death has been determined.
Bodycam footage from August 12 shows a striking image of the 22-year-old being surrounded by male officers questioning what had happened.
Hulls then arrives and sensing that Gabby could do with a female figure, she starts talking to her.
“It’s hard not to second-guess myself, and wish I said more, or wish I had found the right words to make her believe that she deserved more,” Hulls said.
No charges were filed that day as the incident was recorded as an "emotional/mental health break".
“I wouldn’t have called (the relationship) unsafe. If we had any reason to think any one of them was in danger, we would’ve separated them,” she said.
Police have called Laundrie, who returned to Florida from the road trip on September 1 without his partner, a "person of interest" in the case. He is currently missing.
