The boyfriend of a Long Island woman who mysteriously disappeared during their cross-country trip posted a cryptic message about his belle on Instagram last year.
“My biggest fear is that one day I’ll wake up and it will have all been a dream, because that is what every second has felt like since the moment we found each other,” Brian Laundrie wrote in July 2020 about Gabby Petito.
“Til death do us part or until I wake up,” he continued in the post. “I’m so happy the answer was yes. Love you hunny.”
Petito, 22, was reported missing by her mother, Nicole Schmidt, on Saturday. She is believed to have last been in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park in late August as part of her trip with Laundrie, her boyfriend of about 2 1/2 years.
Laundrie, who returned home to Florida by himself, has hired a lawyer and has refused to cooperate with authorities, according to reports.
Authorities have since located the 2012 Ford Transit van the couple had been traveling in since leaving New York in July — but not the missing woman.
“We’re not looking for the van,” Schmidt said at a press conference at her lawyer’s Suffolk County office Monday. “We’re not looking for the two of them. We need to find her and bring her home.”
Schmidt declined to comment when asked if her daughter and Laundrie were engaged, which has been widely reported.
In a closed-door interview with Inside Edition prior to the press conference, Schmidt and her husband, James Schmidt, pleaded for help to bring Gabby home safely.
“We don’t eat, we don’t sleep, we are constantly on social media talking to everyone we can trying to get leads,” Nicole Schmidt told the show.
She said her daughter’s trip, which was documented in part on Instagram, initially “looked like a fairy tale.”
The young couple was last seen checking out of a hotel in Salt Lake City on Aug. 24, and Gabby later told her mom she was in Wyoming on her way to Yellowstone National Park.
That was the last time the two spoke.
The missing woman’s father, Joe Petito, told Inside Edition he wanted the public’s help to locate his missing daughter.
“There are 350-plus million people in this country, and even more outside,” he said. “I’m asking for everyone’s help.”
Asked if he had a message for Laundrie, Petito hesitated.
“No comment,” he finally said.
