Missing Traveller's Mum Shares Last Text Message She Received From Daughter

The mum of the woman who went missing while travelling around national parks in the USA has shared the last message she received from her daughter.

Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old from Florida, was last in contact with her mother in late August from Grand Teton National Park, which was just one of the places she'd been travelling around in a van with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie.

They had been documenting their journey of more than 2,300 miles on Instagram, where the pair would regularly update their followers on where they were up to.

Petito had also started a YouTube account to document the trip.

Instagram/@gabspetito

Laundrie has since returned with the van to his parent's home in North Port - where he and Petito had been living before they set off on their journey.

Now Petito's mum, Nichole Schmidt, has shared the last message she received from her daughter on 30 August, two days before her van was spotted back in Florida.

According to the Daily Mail, the message read: "No service in Yosemite."

However, Schmidt doesn't believe the text was sent by her daughter, given that the national park in California is on the opposite side of the country.

She said: "I do not believe the text on August 30 was from my daughter.

"The van was in Florida on the 1 September. I think I can do the math."

However, she declined to comment on who may have sent the text.

Instagram/@gabspetito

Investigators have now seized the van and wish to talk to 23-year-old Laundrie, but his family have allegedly refused to let investigators talk to him, according to a police spokesperson.

North Port Police Department spokesperson Josh Taylor told Insider: "We showed up. We see the vehicle. We take the vehicle.

"We make an attempt to talk with Brian, and his family declined to make him available, and they gave us the information for his attorney."

Police are still unclear as to whether a crime has been committed, but Petito has been registered as a missing person by her family, which means the cops still have an interest in talking to her boyfriend.

Taylor added: "Right now we don't have a crime. We have a concern of a crime."

He also told the publication that the van 'could be a key piece of evidence' in the case.

"It's her van," he said. "She's not here. He is. So I think it was important for us to take that vehicle and to preserve potential evidence."

He added that the van will be 'processed accordingly, as far as fingerprinting and other types of forensic processes'.

Topics: US News

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey