Body language expert breaks down Gabby Petito police video
The disappearance and death of Gabby Petito, confirmed to be a homicide, has ignited the country. With person of interest Brian Laundrie still missing at the time of this recording, we turned to the bodycam footage of their encounter with police, and asked an expert to break things down. The bodycam footage of Laundrie and Petito was recorded by Moab Police on August 12 and released on September 16, five days after Petito was first reported missing. Since then it’s been the biggest tangible clue that the public has seen regarding what could have happened to Petito, an aspiring travel vlogger who was documenting the couple’s travels in the western United States.
The police encountered Laundrie and Petito after being called by a 911 caller who says he witnessed Laundrie "slapping" the 22-year-old Petito in the white van with Florida plates that the couple was travelling in. Two months after the couple set off on July 1, Laundrie came home alone and refused to talk to investigators about where Petito was. And then, according to his parents, he went missing himself on September 14. As of the making of this video, his whereabouts are still not known, but federal agents have conducted a search of his family home amid a massive manhunt. He has also not publicly been described by law enforcement as a suspect in Petito’s disappearance. Because there are so many unanswered questions, Grunge sought the input of world-renowned body language expert Mark Bowden, to find out what he thought of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundries’ body language in the Moab Police bodycam footage.
In the footage, we see a stressed-out, visibly upset, and crying Petito explaining to cops that she "gets frustrated" and has "really bad OCD" -- obsessive-compulsive disorder. She also told the officer that she apologized to Brian Laundrie for what she described as mean behavior on her own part.
"I’m sorry that I’m so mean, because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I just get really frustrated.”
Later in the video, she said she was hitting him as he drove the van,
and that at one point, he wouldn’t let her in the van until she calmed down. For Laundrie’s part, he acts as if the situation is minor, smiling as he describes the situation to police as:
"little disagreement", and "little squabble." "There’s a few little things, just little…" "I’ve been married for over five years now…" "There’s a lot of little things."
He tells police he told Petito that they should quote, "take a breather," and get out of the van and walk away to get some space from each other. But Laundrie didn’t describe himself as hitting Petito while outside of the van, which was what the 911 caller claimed he saw.
"We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl." "He was slapping her?" "Yes."
Laundrie does admit he pushed her to keep her away because she was "already swinging" and scratching him with her nails and rings. Still, Laundrie insisted that he cared about Petito, despite her violence towards him. But Bowden believes he sees through that narrative. "I’m fine. And I love Gabby. I hope she doesn’t have too many complaints about me." In an email, Mark Bowden summarized the situation as he sees it, saying, "Petito immediately shows clear distress and negative emotions in her face to the police ... but along with Laundrie creates a narrative to minimize the severity of this situation and move more responsibility to her rather than him. Laundrie, in general, displays an air of calm and extreme compliance, creating friendly relationships with the officer, calling him 'buddy.' Both are clearly looking to manage the perception of this severity in this event."
Looking at the footage, that does seem to be true. The video captures an incredibly polite police interaction, with plenty of apologies and apparent downplaying of a negative situation from both Laundrie and Petito. Laundrie repeatedly steers blame toward Petito for initiating the violent exchange, while Petito continually blames herself for the physical altercation.
Bowden pointed out:
"Right to the end of the exchange, Petito is still in distress, but Laundrie is calm and collected leaning against his van. Before this, however, we see him give a low push-away gesture as he explains how he defended himself, after which he pulls twice on his shirt as an adaptor gesture." According to the expert, that motion is a possible sign of deceit, especially considering witnesses who claim they saw him pushing her away and slapping her.
As Bowden put it, "His gestures soften the severity of this to lead us towards an idea of her being the aggressor and him being the defender, whereas the opposite could be more true."
Mark Bowden is a member of The Behavior Panel, in which four of the world’s top body language and behavior experts hash out what’s really going on in "videos of public interest" on their YouTube Channel.
In regards to the current case, he points out that Gabby Petito’s body language was indicative of how upset she was. In particular, he observes, "Petito was also showing a prolonged experience of heightened emotions and distress, and she bends over with hands-on knees to catch her breath."
As far as her vocal inflections are concerned, he also wrote, "Petito’s deeper vocal tones that we hear in her video blogs are gone, and higher ones prevail, again indicating distress and certainly a move from her usually confident baseline behavior on camera."
"I’m perfectly calm, I’m calm all the time. He really stresses me out." Certainly, the Petito we see in the body camera video is a lot different from the one we’ve seen on social media. But it’s not just Petito whose body language tells a story.
From the footage, it appears that Brian Laundrie could be working to make himself look like the person who was dealing with an unhinged partner, and Bowden sees a deeper meaning in Laundrie’s version of what happened. He sees glimpses of controlling behavior, and notes that Laundrie even belittles Petito by referring to her, quote, "little website." "She’s trying to start up like, her own little website/blog and everything. Part of the couple’s fight that morning, from what they told police, had to do with Brian Laundrie locking Gabby Petito of her camper van.
Mark Bowden says Laundrie’s purported spin was an attempt to make it look like he was trying to "de-escalate" the fight, and Petito even told police that Laundrie said she needed to calm down before he would let her back in the van. But according to the expert, even though Laundrie tries to make himself sound reasonable in the situation, his actions still involve him taking control of Petito’s most valuable resources, like food, water, and shelter, while she’s thousands of miles from home.
All told, what appeared to be happening on the surface of the video could be masking a much darker truth. According to Bowden, "All in all, we see both try to manage the perception of the events but one (Laundrie) showing some deceit around violent action.This certainly has some hallmarks of an unhealthy relationship with a high likelihood of violent action from the male, the severity of which is being softened."
Did Laundrie have something to do with Petito’s death? It’s possible, but we don’t know. As the world waits for answers, all the world can do is analyze the clues about what really happened on their fateful, tragic trip.
