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  4. Newly surfaced footage shows Gabby Petito telling the police Brian Laundrie grabbed and scratched her face

Newly surfaced footage shows Gabby Petito telling the police Brian Laundrie grabbed and scratched her face

Mia Jankowicz   

Newly surfaced footage shows Gabby Petito telling the police Brian Laundrie grabbed and scratched her face
  • Footage from Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie's Utah police stop has newly surfaced.
  • The couple is seen describing their fight, with Petito saying Laundrie grabbed her face.
  • Petito said she hit him first. The incident came some weeks before she was found dead.

A new video has surfaced of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie's police stop in Utah, in which the 22-year-old described her fiancé grabbing and scratching her face.

It was taken during a police stop on August 12, about a month before Petito was declared missing, and when she and Laundrie had been on a road trip and living out of a van since June.

Petito's body was found in a Wyoming camping area on September 19, and her death was ruled a homicide. Laundrie, a person of interest in her missing-person investigation, has been missing since September 14.

On August 12, the police had pulled over the couple's van after two witnesses called 911 to say they had seen a male hitting a female. One witness had said the male appeared to have taken the female's phone.

What the new footage reveals

A first bodycam video released earlier September showed Petito looking distraught and apologetic, telling police she had hit Laundrie. The new footage, obtained by Insider, showed a second interview with the couple from the same stop.

Watch it here:

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

In the new video, Petito appeared reluctant to describe any aggression by Laundrie, saying she hit him first. She also said he had locked her out of the van and told her to calm down.

Petito, still tearful, told the officer she was having a "stressed morning."

Asked about a scratch on her face and a fresh mark on her left shoulder, she initially suggested that she got the injury by bumping into a backpack.

But when pressed, she said that she had slapped Laundrie first. "He kept telling me to shut up," she said.

She then described Laundrie grabbing her arm. "He like, grabbed my face, like this," she added, gesturing to demonstrate.

"He didn't punch me or anything ... he grabbed with his nail and I guess this why it looks - I definitely have a cut right here. I can feel it, when I touch it it burns," she said.

The officer was also heard asking about the argument that came before the reported physical aggression. Petito said that she had been trying to get work done and had been "apologizing" to Laundrie. She said she could get a "mean attitude" when she is tidying up.

"So I was just apologizing, but I guess I did it in a mean tone, and he got really frustrated with me and he locked me out of the car and told me, 'let's take a breather,'" she said. That made her more upset, she said.

Earlier in the footage, the officer was also heard asking Laundrie about the incident, telling him there had been reports of a man hitting a woman.

"I don't have time to defend myself by saying anything but I pushed her away, she gets really worked up and when she does she swings and she had her cellphone in her hand, so I was just trying to push her away," Laundrie said.

Later, Laundrie was seen joking around as the officer invited him to stand in the shade.

"I know how it is," the officer is heard saying. "From when I first got here, we were more worried about what kind of a guy you were, from what we heard. Talking to your girlfriend, it sounds to me like maybe this is not so clear cut."

The officer also noted that Laundrie had scratches on his face.

The Moab City Police Department considered charging Petito with domestic violence, but ultimately labeled the fight a mental-health episode and separated the couple for the night.

The department's handling of the August 12 stop is now under investigation after Petito's disappearance and death.

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