Found Deceased WY - Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, 22, Grand Teton National Park, 25 Aug 2021 #18

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I live in Florida. That game preserve is a living hell. BL isn't a dyed in the wool survivalist. He's a guy who likes to ride around in a van, eat veggies for the camera, then stop off for a Big Mac and fries. He's far from eating snakes and gator eggs.
Which is why he's either dead or enjoying a Happy Meal in some "safe house" somewhere.
Exactly!!! I don't believe for one minute he is "hiding out" in that swamp.

But even if he was, I've seen plenty of "I Almost Got Away With It" stories about guys trying to hide in a swamp, and after three days of mosquito bites and no food, they had to go back to civilization. If he really is out there, he can't stay there forever. Someone will see him out their back door or he will end up at a hotel.
 
Boy oh boy! Three hours in, and FBI is still in the home, and nothing has come out yet. They must be going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. BL's mom was escorted out to the black SUV in the beginning. They went in with a team that had a battering ram. I'm sure that's SOP, but I found it alarming.
 
I feel sorry for the LEO’s who stopped them by pulling them over when they were arguing. Towards the end, two of them were discussing what to do and one said to the other something along the lines of “it’s your call, I will support you in whatever you decide”. They decided to put him in a hotel and leave her with the van, to separate them for the night instead of putting her in jail. During the journey in the LEO’s car to the hotel, I think he would have thought that BL seemed very plausible, sensible even. Imagine how they feel now, I feel sorry for them and think they handled the situation well. Can someone confirm, where the white van is parked at the side of the road (spotted on camera and reported by the people who were passing it), how far is that from where G’s body was found?
 
Wow, FBI not fooling around with BL's family the way local police did. While the search of the house is going on the parents had to sit in a van in the driveway - poetic justice in a way. Of course now there is a dead body and a crime scene to go along with the timeline. His parents are probably scared, as they should be. They aided and abetted by not letting anyone know that Gabby was missing for days and days. If it turns out they never liked Gabby in the first place, I will not be surprised! Just my opinion only.

They (the Laundries) had better be careful not to lie to the FBI the way they likely did to the local LE-just ask Martha Stewart and Michael Flynn…the feds WILL put them in prison. I don’t know about the rest of you, but while I adore my children, I am NOT going to prison for either of them.
 
Cops Call Off Swamp Search for Van-Life Fiancé and Swarm His Home

“It’s been a rough morning,” Gabby’s father, Joe Petito, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “I haven’t heard anything new [about Laundrie], and I’m honestly not really paying attention to it at the moment. Me and the family are going to reconvene and kind of go over things and get on the same page, and then we’ll be putting out a statement.”

Laundrie’s parents did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday.
 
exactly, so obviously, he was at the house.....

So you're basing that on what the parents said to LE?

IIRC, the neighbors haven't seen him. I don't think it's so obvious that he was at the house and if he was, for how long. The entire thing with the swamp and the Mustang could be staged. Would be interesting to know if dogs ever picked up a trail and if they did, why the search was abandoned.

I don't think he ever went to the swamp. Great tactic though, truly - these people read like serious schemers.

There are so many possibilities (Dad met Brian partway, on the road, drove the rest of the way home, etc). No one knows his route, if he turned off the phones, it would be very hard to reconstruct it. He had to get gas, but without the route, very challenging to find the footage. He had $200 cash with him and I predict that came from the ATM at Colter Bay - which is likely his last use of an ATM (I wonder if it was Gabby's card?)

If Dad did meet him somewhere along the route, he could also re-supply him with cash. In many ways, if BL did decide to flee the US, Canada would be his best chance, if he could get over the border (I have no idea how easy it is to get into Canada from Montana, but it's a very long border there). He'd blend in better in Canada and could find his way to Alaska...
 
Someone, more than one poster, remarked on the difference between social media staged life and real life. I’m not on SM so I’m pretty ignorant of it all.

My question is, if BL was or pretended to be the environmentally conscientious type, (no plastic bottles etc.), why did he have a Mustang? I don’t know cars but I’m pretty sure it’s not an electric type of car, right?

Snipped for focus
After being on WS for a few years, I no longer trust anything on SM, especially if there's a crime investigation. Even in this case, the couple's IG vanlife log shows them to be happy and fun. Constantly. This belies the video of, e.g. the dispute that involved LE in Moab, where it's clear this is not a happy couple.
I became convinced on WS on the gulf between SM and reality when the Hart case was current. Almost all the photos they had on FB were staged. The entire way they presented themselves was staged. This ranged from saying they were vegetarian (e.g. actually LE found their fridge fully stocked with meat), to conveying their kids were super happy (LE didn't find any evidence that children actually lived in the house or had beds or.....).
Here's a summary of the case:
Who were the Harts, really? Mystery surrounds family that plunged off California cliff

What LE actually found:
Inside the Hart family home, police search reveals debts, contradictions
 
All four of her parents would have moved heaven and earth to get to her if they knew how she was being treated in that van. I wish she had told someone. I wish she had known she didn’t need to keep going on this road trip, that she could try again to get her channel up and running another time.

My gut feeling is that GP would have been utterly mortified to share that info and/or know that thousands are now watching bodycam footage of the whole thing. As such, I can see her choosing not to tell her parents about it. She was grown, engaged, and created a business doing her vanlife vlog; she probably just wanted to forget and move on, not possibly jeopardize her plans by pulling her family into a lover's fight. I think she was optimistic and a dreamer and the fight that day would have been something she would have wanted to move past pretty quickly. (Sadly it was not to be....)

MOO
 
BBM.
IMO, what he actually told his parents is a big unknown. He could have told his parents anything. Their behavior will get no defense from me, but might make more sense if he was telling them stories about how he was in danger, or GP left him, or something along those lines. Of course, we may never really know as no one will be very inclined to believe them at this point.
You bring up a good point, though. The toxic narcissists I have known have many traits in common including the inability to tell the truth and their inability to take responsibility for their own actions. Whatever BL has told his parents likely has been embellished in order to place blame squarely on Gabby. I think that may be the reason they didn't respond to Gabby's parents trying to reach out.
 
I'm late to this thread (sorry!), but after scanning 20 pages or so I can't seem to find any real viable theories, I guess there isn't much to go off of.

That said, I did watch the video, <modsnip> She admits she suffers from OCD, and also that she hit the guy. I realize those are small things, but some girls really do go nuts when they are in a flight and start hitting and screaming and stuff. He seems pretty calm in the face of police being around.

I had a girlfriend when I was 27 years old, and she was really unstable. I came to a point where I wanted to end up, and was making a plan to do so (you have to be careful when ending a relationship with someone unstable). But one night we were at a party having a bunch of drinks and I just hit my breaking point. After we left the party, I just decided to get it over with and told her I was really done and I didn't want it any more. Of course now that I'm 44, I wished I would have handled that with a bit more empathy, but I was just tired of all the <modsnip> and wanted it to be done. After I broke up with her she promptly threw herself into a river and was swept downstream. I looked for her for about 5 minutes, but realized it was a scary situation and she could be really hurt.

I flagged down a passing police car and told them the story, after which they promptly put me in the back of the car and we drove around looking for her. I immediately sensed I was a person of interest, and now possibly in some trouble because they assumed I had tossed her into the river or something. Thankfully for me (and her) we saw her come out of the river downstream after looking for 20-30 minutes. The cops approached her to find out what really happened (which is exactly what I said), and basically had a meltdown with the cops and started punching and screaming at them. In the end I was released that night since my story checked out, and she was involuntarily committed to the psych ward that night. Of course, we stayed broken up.

I'm not saying any of that happened, and he's been extremely shady so far, especially with not talking to the police and disappearing. But maybe he just had enough of her and decided to leave, and in the midst of a breakup, she had a breakdown and either threatened to hurt herself or ran away from him. In that case maybe what he's feeling now is immense guilt and shame that he didn't go looking for her (which is what I would have felt had my ex not come out of that river and I didn't flag down that cop). In this is this day and age when young people especially become so tied to an online persona, especially when it shows them happy and golucky and travelling that a breakup now is such a larger deal since it means the end of that life and being in the spotlight.

Of course, I know in these situations the guy probably did end up hurting her, but just want to present an alternate theory based on some of my own life experiences that almost got me into a load of legal trouble (i.e. if she hadn't stepped out of the water at some point and attacked the cops, I could have been in real trouble, even though I didn't do anything).

<modsnip- removed in quoted post> She wasn't hysterical or incoherent, she was upset and IMO was scared. She was 22 years out in the middle of nowhere with this dude who told her he was going to leave he on the side of the road, on top of that they clearly were getting sick of each other. Not for nothing when I was married to my abuser not once did I ever tell people about the abuse, its what we do. I am sorry though that you went through what you went through, as no one should suffer through that.
 
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i still think the first text to Mom on the 27th was likely very shortly after the time of death. Need to know when it was received and then line it up with the RV video to get an estimate of if Gabby was still alive in that 6:00 PM to 6:30 range the video was taken in.
 
Was it mentioned what the wifi status was for the area where she was found? Someone in a previous thread was very descriptive about the area that she was found. Is there anything else there? Sights to be seen? It doesn't look remarkably scenic. Is this a place they would have set up their tent? Was the distance she was found too far to have gone to use the bathroom if she wanted privacy? Is it possible that he did leave alone for a day or two? Maybe 27-28? When he was picked up his pack was empty but it could have been full when he started out. All speculation and questions which help me make logical deductions.
Thanks!
The Dyrt site for dispersed campgrounds rates the WiFi at Spread Creek Campground as Fair.

It has views, a creek and complex series of streambeds that would be fishable in higher water.

It has some areas with nice views of the Tetons.

It looks very pleasant, with a sagebrush scrub underbrush and a mix of deciduous and conifers.

Clearly there are large animals around, as elk spotters were in the area.

You can go to The Dyrt site and view the photos
 
Apologies in advance if this has been asked/answered. Did FBI take over the Florida (NP) investigation after the discovery of the body in WY or before? I hate to fault LE but the video of the FBI today just looks faster, more efficient, etc. They look prepared, covered all exits, got trespassers off the property. They seem to be moving methodically. Is this due to them having more leeway now that a body has been found and it’s federal jurisdiction?

This is my theory. As soon as they found Gabby, there was a suspicious death on federal land and the FBI and District of Wyoming have jurisdiction to investigate. They likely immediately got warrants connected with that suspicious death. Even if you want to be super conservative and not call it a homicide investigation, the sudden death of a healthy 22 year old is suspicious per se.
 
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