Norma Jalovec: Wyoming woman claims she drove Brian Laundrie to Spread Creek campsite
Amid the manhunt for Brian Laundrie, a second woman has now claimed that last month, she had picked him up while he was hitchhiking in Wyoming on August 29, two days after his girlfriend Gabby Petito was last seen alive. She reportedly dropped him at the campground where Petito's body was later discovered. The woman, Norma Jean Jalovec, told Fox News that she met Laundrie near Pacific Creek Landing, the same day that TikToker Miranda Baker also picked him up in Grand Teton National Park.
Laundrie requested Jalovec to drive him to the Spread Creek dispersed camping area, the very campground where Petito's body was eventually found. Laundrie and Jalovec had a conversation about his fiancée and his hike near Snake River. Laundrie then asked Jalovec to let him out at the campground gates.
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Jalovec said that when she offered to drive Laundrie inside the grounds and drop him off closer to his campsite, he attempted to “get out of the moving car”. He then again asked to be let out. Jalovec had no idea about whom she had picked up until she saw Baker's videos. Laundrie’s alleged hitchhiking took place four days after Petito called her family to say she was in the park and four days after her last Instagram photo before the disappearance.
Laundrie hitched a ride from two drivers?
Earlier, Baker claimed that she had had an interaction with Laundrie when she picked him up as he was hitchhiking alone on August 29 -- five days after Gabby was seen checking out of a Fairfield Inn hotel in Utah. In a video that Baker shared on her TilTok account, she said she, along with her boyfriend was at Grand Teton National Park in Colter Bay, Wyoming, on the evening of August 29 when Brian requested them for a lift. She said, “He approached us asking for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson and we were going to Jackson that night. So I said, ya know, ‘hop in’ and he hopped in the back of my Jeep.”
Baker said she and her boyfriend “then proceeded to make small talk”. “He did say he had a fiancée and that she was working on their social media page back at their van,” Baker stated. “He had scruff but he didn't look dirty for someone who was camping for multiple days. He didn't look dirty, he didn't smell dirty, so that part was kind of weird,” Baker said. She also claimed that Laundrie apparently ‘freaked out’ and asked them to stop when he was told that they were driving to Jackson Hole. “Nope, I need to get out right now,” he allegedly told Baker. Baker said, We dropped him off at 6.09pm on August 29." They termed the interaction as “a weird situation”.
Following Laundrie's indictment on federal charges over his girlfriend Gabby Petito's death, the FBI has now obtained an arrest warrant for him, authorities confirmed on Thursday, September 23. Court papers say that Laundrie has been charged with one count of use of unauthorized access devices -- a Capital One debit card in order to investigate his activities after Petito's disappearance.