In a new interview with People Magazine, the second woman who says she gave Brian Laundrie a ride while he was hitchhiking on August 29 is talking more about their encounter. According to Norma Jean Jalovec, she picked Laundrie up around 6:20 p.m. after she had visited a church service.
While describing their encounter to People, Norma admitted that there was “nothing extraordinary about” Laundrie. However, it was how he acted as they got closer to the gate of the Spread Creek Dispersed camping area that really stuck with Norma, she said.
Second Woman Who Picked Up Brian Laundrie Hitchhiking Talks About Their Time Together
“He got agitated when I said, ‘Do you want me to take you past the gate, down the road [to the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area]?’” Norma continued, “He was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. This is fine,'” she recalls. “He said, ‘Just let me out here. You can let me out here.'”
Norma added that she barely got a chance to stop the car before “he literally was getting out of the passenger seat.” Where Norma dropped Brian Laundrie off, she said it would be a several-mile-long walk before he got to his van, and it was nearing nightfall.
Norma admitted to People that she tried to keep the conversation light and added that she tried to joke with Laundrie when he was adamant that he wanted to get out at the gate. “I said, ‘Oh, you don’t want your fiancée to see you being dropped off out of an SUV. You want her to think you hiked all the way back.'”
Norma said she now has her own theories about why he didn’t want her to drive to their campsite. “If no one else comes forward about seeing him after 6:40 p.m., then I was the last person to see him.” As reports have suggested, Brian was back in Florida, where he and Gabby Petito lived with his parents on September 1.
At the time Laundrie was in Norma’s car, she obviously didn’t think of him as anything other than a hitchhiker, which is something that happens often in that area. However, it was when Norma saw Miranda Baker’s TikTok that she realized she too gave Laundrie a ride.
Baker reportedly gave Laundrie a ride prior to Norma. Baker’s story bears similarities in that Laundrie also got out of her car in a hurry and that Laundrie had mentioned his fiancée during small talk but never called Gabby Petito by her name.
And while it does share similarities, it also holds some differences. In Baker’s TikTok, she mentioned that even though Laundrie told her that he had been camping for days at Snake River, he didn’t look dirty and he didn’t smell like he had been camping with only the tarp in his backpack.
However, Jalovec admitted to People that Brian Laundrie “was scruffy when he got in the car and he smelled.”
“He asked where I was going and said, ‘Well, can you take me to Jackson?” When he then said, “Well, okay, can you at least just take me down to Spread Creek?'” Norma agreed.
“He said, ‘My fiancée and I live in a van. We’re traveling cross-country and blogging about our adventures.’ Then, he said, ‘She’s been working on the website and blogging in the van at Spread Creek and I’ve just been out hiking along the Snake River.’”
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Baker also revealed that Laundrie offered her $200 for the ride. Norma said Laundrie also offered her gas money but it wasn’t nearly that amount.
Norma has spoken with the FBI regarding her run-in with Brian Laundrie. Still, the 23-year-old has not been found after he disappeared from his Florida home earlier this month.
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