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The stepfather of missing Long Island woman Gabby Petito has travelled to Wyoming to help join search efforts — vowing not to leave until he brings her home, her family said Wednesday.
James Schmidt, former fire chief for Blue Point Fire Department, has arrived out West to aid authorities in tracking down Petito, who was last known to be in the state’s Grand Teton National Park in late August.
“He’s not leaving until he brings Gabby home,” Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, told The Post. “Now we have eyes, ears, feet on the ground.. in both her home states and where she was last seen.”
Petito, who is from Blue Point, New York, was reported missing on Sept. 11 by her mom, who said her daughter stopped contacting her family on her cross-country tour of national parks.
She had been traveling in a converted van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, and was due to wrap up the trip at a friend’s home in Portland around Halloween.
But when her travel updates stopped in late August, her family became concerned.
Meanwhile, Laundrie has refused to cooperate with authorities and returned without her to North Port, Florida, where they had been living for around two years, police said.
Police have not accused Laundrie of any wrongdoing, but officers in North Port have repeatedly said that they want to talk to him.
Petito’s family has begged him to give them any information about her whereabouts
“The Schmidt and Petito family are going through the worst moments of their lives,” they said in a statement.
“The Schmidt and Petito family beg the Laundrie family to not ‘remain in the background’ but to help find who Brian referred to as the love of his life,” the statement said. “How does Brian stay in the background when he is the one person that knows where Gabby is located.”
.Earlier this week, Petito’s biological father, who moved to the Sunshine State to be closer to her, urged people across the country to keep their eyes peeled for anything “fishy.”
“The hard part is that it’s the van life. They can go anywhere they wanted, unfortunately, in this situation. It’s the entire damn country,” he told The Post.
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan
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