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New police video shows Gabby Petito admitting altercation with fiancé got physical

The footage from an incident in Utah, on Aug. 12 shows Petito, who was found dead five weeks later, saying Laundrie struck her after she slapped him.

Police released additional bodycam footage late Thursday from the aftermath of an altercation in August between Gabby Petito and fiancé Brian Laundrie that shows her telling an officer that the fight got physical between the couple.

The new footage stems from an incident on Aug. 12 in which the Moab Police Department in Utah responded to a 911 call by a witness who reported seeing a man hitting a woman.

After police pulled over the couple in their van, which they had been using on a cross-country trip they were documenting on social media, Petito tells an officer on camera that Laundrie struck her after she slapped him first.

The bodycam video was taken more than five weeks before Petito, 22, was found dead on Sept. 19 in a Wyoming campground. A manhunt for Laundrie is now in its third week after he disappeared from his parents' home in North Port, Florida, in the middle of last month.

Laundrie is a person of interest, but has not been named a suspect and has not been charged in Petito's death, which has been ruled a homicide. Last month, a federal court in Wyoming issued a warrant for his arrest for alleged bank card fraud that authorities said occured after Petito's death.

In the newly released body camera video, an officer asks Petito if Laundrie hit her in the face.

"I guess, but I hit him first," she says.

"Where did he hit you? Don’t worry. Just be honest," the officer asks.

"Well, he grabbed my face," Petito says.

"Did he slap your face? Or what?" the officer asks.

"Well like, yeah he grabbed me with his nail, and I guess that’s why I definitely have a cut right here because I can feel it when I touch it, it burns," she said, while crying and holding her jaw.

The officer is then shown speaking to Laundrie, who gives his side of the story.

"She gets really worked up, and when she does she swings, and she had her cellphone in her hand, so I was just trying to push her away," Laundrie says on camera.

The expanded video adds to previously released footage of the couple's encounter with the police. The responding officer initially described the altercation as a mental health crisis, not a domestic assault, according to the police report.

The city of Moab announced on Sept. 28 that it will be conducting an independent investigation into the way officers handled the incident between the couple. The Moab Police Department did not return a request for comment by NBC News.

FBI agents swept Laundrie's family home in North Port again on Thursday for personal items to assist canine teams in their search for him, according to an attorney for the family.

The family's attorney also confirmed to NBC News that Laundrie purchased a new cell phone just days after returning to North Port without Petito from their cross-country trip, and that phone is currently in the possession of the FBI.