NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Gabby Petito’s parents and stepparents discussed the moment her remains were discovered during a new Dr. Oz interview airing Tuesday.
In clips shared in advance of the airing, Petito’s stepdad, Jim Schmidt, spoke to how he informed the rest of the family of the discovery while he was in Wyoming.
“I kind of knew something was up. I was getting a lot of phone calls in the morning, a lot of— a lot of questions being asked about different things from the investigators. I knew right away that they had found her,” Schmidt said.
“We were crying...I said, 'Listen, we gotta call. We gotta get everybody on a conference call and call soon.’ I wanted it to come from us before it got out in the media, or anything else,” he added.
Petito’s remains were discovered in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park on Sept. 19 after a roughly weeklong search.
Her family reported their daughter, 22, missing on Sept. 11, her fiancé Brian Laundrie returned to Florida in the van from the couple’s cross-country trip. Laundrie, 23, went missing days later.
Laundrie’s remains were found about a month after Petito’s, on Oct. 20, in Florida’s Carlton Reserve and the adjoining Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, nearby his family’s home.
Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, told Dr. Oz in a separate clip released from the interview that she sensed her daughter had died as soon as Laundrie returned to Florida without her.
“The night I was told that her van was in Florida was the night I knew in my heart she was gone,” Nichole Schmidt said.
Schmidt added that the family is trying to rely on each other and the family’s Gabby Petito Foundation to get through their unimaginable grief. The foundation aims to connect families of missing persons to supportive resources.
“We’re not okay,” Nichole said, verging on tears. “But we have this; we have each other and we’re going to help a lot of people — and that’s what’s keeping us going.”
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