Posted on 09/17/2021 5:36:07 AM PDT by blueplum
A friend of Gabby Petito said the two were supposed to meet at Yellowstone National Park — but she never heard from the Long Island woman, who has since disappeared.
Petito, 22, was due to meet up with her pal on Aug. 29 at Yellowstone and was supposed to call her that day — the friend’s birthday — to nail down the specifics, The Sun reported.
But the friend never heard from Petito and is puzzled the Blue Point native would instead text her mom the next day that she was in Yosemite — 800 miles from her last known location at Grand Tetons ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The investigators have the van and are doing forensic work on it. IF he carried her dead body around in it, looking for a place to dump her, I'd imagine a cadaver dog would hit on it. Did he and his family wash and detail it when he got home? Time will tell.
I feel really sorry for that poor gal - whether she’s dc or not - but I have to admit somewhat shamefacedly that all these stories about weird camping events make me furious because I really want to go camping. These people are all like “Wheeee! Look at our cool vehicle and high-tech tent and we’re so happy in every pic” and it’s at Mt Rushmore or Canyonlands or something. I know: Shame on me for being jealous of someone who’s likely dead.
Mars
so, for those who don’t have an hour and 14 minutes to watch the entire body cam, here’s some notes on the traffic stop:
Last 10 minutes of the tape officer repeats that boyfriend said the couple was headed to washington to work on a ‘wwoolfing’ organic farm with Gabby’s grandmother or grandmother’s friend and sounds like he’s saying to follow the farming down to Oregon and California same story as (20min) hard to hear it all without my headphones
Instead of a branch smacked me camping type of no issues here white lie, boyfriend says Petito hit him with her phone and, admits to grabbing her by the face and pushing her away from him. That flies bother her, his dirty feet bother him and seems chummy with the officers. When officer asks if he’s on medication, he’s animated, (16 min), boyfriend changes his body language to crossed legs and arms and even uses the ladder on the rear of the van at one point towards the end of the tape to keep himself in one place. When the officer that asks the question leaves, he gets reanimated with the other officer then goes back to closed position when original officer returns. He says he doesn’t really have a phone (14 minutes in) “if she goes off without me I’m on my own”, but at the end of the hour (55 min), he has one. He claims that he hit the right curb because Petito grabbed the wheel, but she denies it. He never explains why she was crying when they were pulled over. The only time he seems to tear up was when he learned that the officer wasn’t going to issue a citation to Petito. When the officer told him not to contact her until the next day, he replied that he’d only text her to tell her not to message him, anyway, with a hand-sweeping motion.
I didnt hear the officers asking for the vehicle reg, and boyfriend didn’t offer that it wasn’t his vehicle in the first 15 minutes.
Boyfriend claimed that at the cafe he was upset he had dirty feet, and they were at the cafe for 4 hours and he wanted to get water at the campground because they were out. She said he was basically telling her she wasn’t good enough (at the internet?) to do her blog, his lack of confidence upset her. Boyfriend told officer that when they got back to the van there was dirt and he was moving things around in the van. Then he had locked the van, you take a walk this way in the shade and I’ll take a walk that way and cool down. But she wanted the vehicle keys and he admits to keeping the vehicle keys from her, that he ‘got loud’ yelling at her, to embarass her, and being close enough to “grab her face” to “push her away” and that’s when her phone allegedly scratched his cheek. This is a bit different than the witness account. To note, the blackmasked officer actually made tiger-clawing motions several times with his own hands to which boyfriend nodded.
The witness said they were arguing, that he shoved her, that he locked her out of the vehicle and put her backpack on the back of the van (21 min) and seemed ready to leave, but the drivers door was unlocked and Petito force-climbed her way over him to her seat and they drove off. Petito also said ‘he wouldnt let me in the car.’ Petito also said was she didnt want him to leave her ‘again’. (so they were both worried each other was going to strand each other?) Petito says she’s a neatnick and was trying to clean and before they were pulled over he kept telling her to calm down which made her mad. It sounded like she was trying to cover for him. He posed for photographs of a fingernail ‘scratch’ on his arm and the scratch on his cheek (described as a “swollen eye” by the officer). Boyfriend says at (29) minutes he doesn’t have the money for a hotel and listens while the sgt is telling him the trouble that Petito is in for domestic abuse. Officer seems to still assume that the van is the boyfriends, saying Petito can stay in a hotel for the night and he can pick her up the next morning. Boyfriend again says they have little money and asks what if she takes the van.
Arrangements were made for boyfriend to be given a ‘abuse victim’ hotel room, I didn’t hear any officer ask where Petito intended to spend her night but he did ask on the phone if another place could be found for ‘the agressor’ and it could not.
The officer says at (24min) that boyfriend said they had been living out of the van for ‘4 or 5 months’
People have always tried to project their best image to others. The fashion industry, cosmetic industry and public relations industry depend entirely on that drive, so self-promotion is nothing new. Prior to social media, back when human beings interacted on a person-to-person basis, an individual actually had to provide some substance behind the image they were presenting to the world. While there may have been a gap between image vs. reality, real interaction with others usually kept that gap from getting too wide to bridge.
One problem with social media and the social media generation that I have observed is that individuals can put an image out there of happiness, success, wealth, etc. seeking affirmation from countless thousands or even millions whom they will never meet. Harvesting, "likes" on a social media account affirms the image and not the reality, to the point people begin to wholly believe in their online persona and lose touch with their true selves. In doing so, they lose their ability to interact with others in the real world where their online persona simply doesn't work.
So what does this have to do with this case? Maybe nothing.
On the other hand, the disparity between their YouTube vlog and the police video, I think, shows that in this case that gap between image and reality became irreconcilably large for this couple. The images in the YouTube video they posted were one of the happy, carefree, nomad couple out to discover the world on a worry free drive across America. The police bodycam video pretty much shows that the reality of a long road trip was probably something neither of these two was emotionally equipped to deal with, no matter how much they believed they were.
Just my $0.02.
I doubt it.
They only had Gabby’s phone, Laundrie didn’t have one. Also, Laundrie was home by September 1st so August 25th is the last time anyone heard from Gabby that can be proven to BE Gabby..
Interesting - thanks for the recap for those of us who don’t have time to watch the whole recording!
If you read Post 24, it’s inconclusive if Laundrie had a phone.
Thanks for the info, DJ! Did the fiance come home with her phone? If not, did he call his parents along the way? I'm assuming a check of the phone record of his parents would show incoming calls? Thanks again for the infomation.
Neither Laundrie nor his parents are co-operating and the police are letting out very few details.
Hard to believe it's true, but here's an article about it, published back in January this year:
“I’ve traveled Nevada,Kalifornia,Arizona and Colorado. Apart from a few towns the area resembles the surface of the moon.”
Might want to try leaving the Interstate some time. Lots of incredibly beautiful places in those states.
A 1 hour and 14 min traffic stop? Never heard of one that long before. Were the officers bored and had nothing better to do?
Chandra got killed after Bill left office. Her story got wiped away because of 9/11.
“… The friend has not yet spoken to police, the Sun reported.”
*************************************************************
Well, she definitely needs to speak to the police. She has more “bread crumbs” that the investigators can add to their collection. Every bit of information counts.
The other major development that everyone on this thread is overlooking is the double murder of the lesbian couple in the same vicinity where the cops stopped Laundrie and Petito. It might be a coincidence, but if so, it is one heck of a coincidence considering the location is in or near tiny Moab, Utah.
The lesbian couple were last seen alive on August 13. The police responded to the argument between Laundrie and Petito on August 12. Gabby went missing sometime on or after the 25th.
“When the officer told him not to contact her until the next day, he replied that he’d only text her to tell her not to message him”
How would he text her without a phone?
That’s 100 feet off the road in the middle of nowhere. The moon.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.