Dog The Bounty Hunter Calls Brian Laundrie ‘A Gentleman’ And Says He Killed Gabby Petito While Calming Her Down
This sounds like victim-blaming.
Moab Police Department / YouTube Dog the Bounty Hunter is known for his outlandish comments and controversial ideas — his involvement in the hunt for Brian Laundrie and the murder of Gabby Petito is no different.
He’s been reaching for leads like poop found at a campsite and empty Monster Energy cans, and now his latest controversy is coming from an interview conducted by The Sun.
Dog The Bounty Hunter called Brian Laundrie 'a gentleman.'
“I was told by a very close source that he was a gentleman,” he told The Sun as he recounted some of the ideas in his head about how Laundrie may have reacted after killing Petito.
This is all speculative, as we do not know whether or not Laundrie was involved in Petito’s murder, but Dog is theorizing that he was and that it could have been an accident.
“Something happened, of course, he murdered her,” Dog said. “I think he called the mom and dad right from the scene.”
According to the initial autopsy ruling, Petito’s death was the result of a homicide, and people have speculated that Laundrie was the culprit since he was the last person known to have been with her before her death.
“I think he started, ‘Mom she was screaming, she was screaming and I put my hand over her mouth,’ and I’ve heard this, I’ve seen this in court,” he said.
Dog tells a scenario that could have happened if Laundrie killed Petito in an accident — frantically calling his parents from a phone that’s still missing, trying to figure out what to do.
He also mentioned in the interview that Petito was very “loud” and “verbal,” which with what he said about Laundrie, felt like he was victim-blaming, as if loudness is a justification for abuse.
“I know that she was very verbal because as they were arguing one time, the vacationers around them heard her yelling,” Dog said.
“I know that he calmed her down usually by grabbing her mouth like that.”
He’s referencing the domestic incident that occurred outside of the Moonflower co-op in Moab, Utah in which a witness reported that Laundrie had been slapping Petito while they were arguing.
In the bodycam footage, Laundrie himself reveals that he grabbed her face and pushed her away in his attempts to get her to calm down.
“I know I shouldn’t have pushed her,” he told the police officer, “but I just tried to push her away to go ‘let’s just take a minute, step back, and breathe,’ and she got me with her phone.”
Laundrie claims that Petito hit him with her phone but didn’t mention anything about hitting her and neither did the police, making it seem like she had been the aggressor.
If Laundrie did have a history of being aggressive, as the initial 911 phonecall implies, then we can stop putting blame on Petito for being "loud."
Wanted for stealing $1,000 from Petito’s bank accounts, Laundrie remains missing for almost a month after disappearing on September 13th, 2021.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.