Gabby Petito’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who has also gone missing and is being sought by the FBI, suffered with jealousy and control issues and experienced “episodes” in which he would hear voices and not be able to sleep, Petito’s friend told the Daily Mail.
Rose Davis, 21, of Sarasota, described Laundrie as a controlling and manipulative boyfriend, in one incident stealing Petitio’s ID so she wouldn’t be able to go out to bars with her.
Petito had described the strange episodes to Davis, which at times forced Petito to sleep at her house.
“He’s got these jealousy issues and he struggles from what Gabby called these ‘episodes,’ where he would hear things and hear voices and wouldn’t sleep,” she told the outlet.
“Gabby had to stay at my house a bunch of times because she just needed a breather and didn’t want to go home to him.”
Davis said she “used to consider [Laundrie] a friend,” after spending time with the couple.
She said she believes she was one of Petito’s only friends in Florida after she relocated there from Long Island, and believed Laundrie was jealous of their relationship and taking her away from him.
She said the two friends would share locations on their iPhones to keep each other safe “in case we got lost,” but Laundrie made Petito stop sharing once he found out.
“He had this composure as a sweet, nice, caring guy. But you could tell he’s a little off, a little weird. Like, he’d set up our hammocks when we’d go to the beach, but wouldn’t sit with us, which I found bizarre,” she told the Daily Mail.
“Brian has a jealousy issue,” Davis said. “I’m her only friend in Florida to my knowledge and that’s not because she can’t make friends, he just didn’t want her to have friends.”
“He was always worried she was going to leave him,” she said. “It was a constant thing to try to get us to stop hanging out.”
Davis told the Daily Mail that she’d last spoken to Petito in early August, when they discussed meeting up in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming for Davis’ birthday on Aug. 29. Davis said she had requested off work for the days, but never went after never hearing back from Petito.
She said the couple never fought in front of her, but she believed she could tell when they had just had an argument. She said that in the first year of knowing her, Petito spent between seven and 10 nights at her house after they had fought.
“I do believe that their relationship as they kept going on was getting more problematic. It just seemed like there was more and more arguments,” she told the Daily Mail, adding that they had still planned on getting married despite Petito telling her mother it was called off.
“Everything she did, I feel like he thought was wrong.”
Bodycam footage of the couple fighting in Utah shows Petito inconsolably crying next to Laundrie.
“For her anxiety to act up like that, there has to be a decent thing to trigger it,” Davis said, adding that she was aware Petito suffered from anxiety. She said she wished that Petito had decided to call her after that incident.
“I’m a little upset she didn’t just call me after that fight, because she would have before,” Davis said.
Petito has not been seen since Aug. 30, when she was traversing the country with Laundrie.
Petito was reported missing on Sept. 11 after going more than a week without contacting her family.
Laundrie returned alone in her van to the Florida home they shared on Sept. 1 and is now missing.
Davis said she spoke with North Port police on Tuesday to give them all the information she mentioned. She’s considered reaching out to Laundrie.
“I wanted to stand outside his house and to just beg him to tell me where he last saw her, but I know he won’t and I can’t force him to talk to me,” she told the Mail while crying.
“For all we know, he’s scared and handling this all wrong. I just wish he would talk. Just give me three words, the name of a park. Give me something, something.”
