On August 12, 2021, a witness called the 9-1-1 emergency response phone line claiming that a couple, later identified as Laundrie and Petito, was fighting in front of the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah.[1][2] The caller told the dispatcher they saw a man slap a woman, and after the two ran up and down the sidewalk, the man hit the woman again and then drove off.[12]