Close-ups of footage said to show Gabby Petito's van near where a body was found appear to show the rear door closing
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Mia Jankowicz
Sep 20, 2021, 22:57 IST
Before-and-after, zoomed-in stills, seconds apart, from Red, White & Bethune's footage that appear to show the rear van door closing. Stills marked up by Insider.
Red, White & Bethune/YouTube/Insider
YouTube footage purporting to show Gabby Petito's van appears to show the rear door closing.
The YouTubers Jenn and Kyle Bethune said they believed the van was unoccupied as they passed.
A zoomed-in view of the van shows the door move while the camera is still distant.
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Close-up views of footage taken by a family of YouTubers appear to show the door of Gabby Petito's van closing as they approached.
Jenn and Kyle Bethune, part of a vlogging family known as Red White & Bethune on YouTube, posted footage on Sunday showing a white van on their travels.
They said the video was recorded on August 27 near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
The van closely resembles the converted 2012 Ford Transit van Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, were traveling in before she went missing.
Jenn Bethune told Insider's Connor Perrett that the family was driving through Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area about 6 p.m. on August 27.
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The family's GoPro, affixed to the front of its vehicle, captured the footage.
Petito was reported missing on September 11 after she did not return from a cross-country road trip with Laundrie.
In their footage, the Bethunes say they hope to say hello to the occupants of the van, as they have noticed their Florida license plates. But as the pass, they say they think the van is unoccupied, so they keep driving.
"The van looked pretty much abandoned. We figured maybe they were out hiking, they were just chilling inside. There were no doors open," Kyle Bethune says in the voice-over.
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But when zoomed in, the video appears to show the van's rear door closing as the Bethunes' vehicle approaches. The moment is not easy to spot in the footage, at around 1 minute 34 seconds:
The van in the Bethunes' footage has not been confirmed to be Petito's, and as of Sunday, the FBI had not responded to the tip Jenn Bethune submitted about the video, she said.
A photo of Petito's van released by the FBI on Thursday shows several stickers on the rear. Close-ups of the van in the Bethunes' footage show, albeit in low resolution, stickers that appear to match.
But some of the stickers - notably a distinctive black triangular one - do not appear in the Bethunes' footage.
Authorities continue to search for Laundrie, who was reported missing on September 14 after he refused to speak with police for days as part of the search for Petito.
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