Found Deceased WY - Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, 22, Grand Teton National Park, 25 Aug 2021 #79

[ringbearer]

I waited tables for almost ten years. I have never (EVER) seen an angry/upset customer come back into the restaurant for more arguing four times. I would have been terrified that he was going to come back in with a weapon. It is just not at all normal "disappointed/annoyed customer" behavior. I've seen a lot of upset, and some out-of-control customers, but in situations where there is no alcohol involved, his behavior was plenty crazy for me to feel confident in applying the word "rage". Just because someone doesn't act like people who are hospitalized with mental illness does not mean that what he was displaying wasn't rage. It absolutely was rage.

The fact that Gabby was outside, apparently upset, during the whole thing makes me wonder whether the going back and forth didn't have something to do with her being out there. Did the dispute have to do with a credit card declination? Is that why she was upset? etc., etc. jmo

 

[Roselle65]

from this, I surmise that they have bad cameras, IMO.

Could his mother have tried to make herself look like Brian, so LE would think he was back home? Even with just a baseball cap on, it's obvious she's not Brian. Maybe a hoodie pulled up? But not just a baseball cap.

 

[claire_parker]

That's interesting because the couple that picked him up outside Jackson commented that for someone who had been camping he didnt smell bad at all. How many days difference are those 2 sightings?

I thought it was same day?

 

[ginx]

I am glad you are alive.
ditto, it is absolutely terrifying because the person in my case, claims to NOT have had any awareness or control over their body ie. blackout. Not from booze but rage.

Thank you. I'm glad you made it through, too.

It is terrifying how alcohol and drugs aren't the only things that can cause altered states of consciousness. Rage alone can do it. I have personally never been that angry, even when my life was threatened, but having seen it happen, I feel just absolutely terrible for what GP must have experienced. Maybe that's why I am so caught up in this case and determined to understand it. I wish she had gotten out before it ever got anywhere near to that point.

Or perhaps he wasn't laying out a perfect alibi.

That is exactly my suggestion. My point is that the hike could have been the groundwork for a solid legal defense, so it doesn't make sense that BL thought that far ahead and then scrapped it all later. There would have been no reason to do that.

Sure, it could be that the solo hiking was a result of panicking, too. It just doesn't make sense to me, so I created a scenario that does.

Maybe there's another scenario entirely that fits better.

My guess is that we will probably never know the truth behind a lot of the odd bits of this case.

 

[Roselle65]

It just occurred to me that maybe he didn't know she was dead.

This whole time, I've been thinking how he had created perfect cover by taking off and solo hiking and then hitch hiking back, and it has never made sense to me that he didn't just continue with that plan...even if she wasn't discovered by the time he returned. He already had witnesses that he wasn't there so he could easily say he just found her that way. He had PROOF that he'd left the campsite and then returned, so he certainly had thrown more than a shadow of a doubt in there about his responsibility for her death.

I theorized once that SOME of his actions made more sense in the context of his innocence. However, I hadn't considered another scenario that sort of fills those gaps for me. Of course, this is all MOO:

• They get into a fight on the 27th. (We have evidence this was likely based on the Merry Piglets incident)
• He grabs her and strangles her (We also have evidence that he, at the least, "grabbed her face" in the past, so this might have been a typical response for him)
• He, thinking she is unconscious, leaves on a solo hike to "cool off" (His impulse after fights was to separate himself from her in some way as evidenced by Moab, CL's comments, even Rose).
• After a few days, he cools down. Maybe he considers flying home, and then changes his mind and decides to return to GP (Based on the odd convo he had while hitchhiking, and he seemed to relay that she was back at the van working on her social media, possibly he really thought this to be the case.)
• If he took her phone with him, left his own phone or had no way to charge it, if cell service was spotty, or he assumed she was mad and ignoring him, he wouldn't be able to have phone contact with her anyway, so he wouldn't have any other possibility for attempting to contact her until he returned to the van.
• Upon his return, he either doesn't find her and hangs out for a little bit waiting for her and then leaves, or, he does find her, realizes he's responsible and panics.

In either case, it all makes more sense this way. IF he didn't find her, he thinks she's left and so he takes off for home with the van. He thinks the Petito's are calling because they are angry. He lawyers up because he's expecting DV charges. Eventually, he realizes that she's actually missing and considers his own culpability...leading to his trip to the reserve.

If he did find her, then he takes off for home in the van in the same way because he realizes he has killed her and panics. That makes more sense than the idea that he killed her and then laid out what could have been a perfect alibi and then just scrapped it out of the blue and took the van. He could easily relay to his parents a story about how they got into a fight...she's angry with him...he could get DV charges...etc. He had time to think about that story on his drive back to North Port, so it would have been laid out well by the time he got there.

The Laundrie's might have felt it was possible that GP was setting him up to catch a false DV charge based on whatever story he told them. If they then wished to protect him from such charges, it would explain almost all of their actions, or seeming lack thereof. If you consider the characterization of the Moab stop, where GP was considered the aggressor, this makes even more sense. By the time RL and ChL realize that something more sinister has occurred, he is already "missing".

I have no experience with strangling, but I can't imagine thinking someone that had been strangled would be anything but dead. Why he might have thought she had only been unconscious, and not answered her phone, because she was mad at him...Surely he knew her mad days were over.

 

[Luna20]

Have there been any reports of phone activity they were able to pick up?

 

[lxmx]

Wow. Sounds like he was setting himself up with an alibi.

The problem I have with the alibi theory is that the 2 people he told were people who picked him up hitchhiking. Where would he ever find those people again to testify for him? Remember most homicide cases don’t get this type of publicity, he would have had no way of knowing this would go viral and random people would come forward with tips. I would think that if he was going about setting up an alibi he would have talked to workers at a shop or a restaurant or gas station or someplace he would be able to tell police -go ask them, they’ll tell you I was there. MOO

 

[Bertha96]

Could his mother have tried to make herself look like Brian, so LE would think he was back home? Even with just a baseball cap on, it's obvious she's not Brian. Maybe a hoodie pulled up? But not just a baseball cap.

It sounds like they were reaching for any excuse. His mother isn't built anything like BL. That is beyond ridiculous for LE to suggest otherwise.
IMO LE blew it, they know they blew it and that's the best excuse they could come up with.
They underestimated BL's ability to leave mom and dad behind and go on the lam.
They most likely never thought BL would do that because, if he was going to run from LE, he would have taken off from the crime scene and never returned to Florida. Especially with the victim's van and credit card(s)!

LE didn't think he had it in him to take off and leave the comfort and protection of home and family. So they snoozed on him and it came back to bite them in the ar$e. IMO.

 

[MadMcGoo]

Can you cite one single source that shows that Brian was "in a rage." Everything I read says he was quietly "aggressive" with the staff, but almost no one who was there can say what it is he was saying. He wasn't loud. He didn't knock anything over. He didn't yell. He didn't use profanity. - according to known MSM reports.

Are we using the word "rage" these days to mean "person was unhappy with some aspect of service"? Talked quietly and intensely and repeatedly about whatever it was? Not "rage" to me.

There's no "rage" in the police bodycam either. Where is this claim of rage coming from? I respectfully disagree with your opinion that there was "rage" at Merry Piglets (and yes, I've seen rage - I work in jails and mental hospitals, as well as at a public institution - where we see rage rarely but I have seen it; but mostly I see it in other settings). I've travelled a lot, I work in mental health, I think people use the word differently. Brian sounds like he was very irritated but he didn't overturn tables (which I've seen) or even a glass of water (very angry behavior - but not rage).

At least, not rage in the DSM sense of rage - it might seem like rage to you, but it didn't seem like rage to the staff (or they would have called for help because actual rage is such a strong reaction that restraint or LE is needed).

I agree with your assessment here. The "incident" at MP's doesn't seem memorable enough for staff to recall (that we are aware of). A "rage" incident would have more than likely been somewhat memorable to someone. JMO

 

[JudgeJudi]

That would depend upon length of time after eating when she died.
It would also depend upon state of decomposition whether gastric or duodenal contents were available for examination.

The subject of gastric emptying issue came up during the Oscar Pistorius trial. Prof. Saayman, forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy on Reeva and said a person's stomach is normally empty of food six hours after eating. He took pains to qualify this statement by saying that estimating the time of gastric emptying was not an exact science and that he was relying on his years of experience and studying.

Saayman is Head of the Dept of Forensic Medicine at the University of Pretoria and Chief Specialist in the Forensic Pathology Service. He has 30 years of experience as a forensic pathologist and is responsible for the medico-legal investigation of unnatural and unexplained deaths and has performed and supervised approximately 10,000-15,000 such case investigations and post mortem examinations.

 

[Nanceedroo]

I hate to drag personal experience into this, but I have been choked a couple of times. I did not go unconscious in 30 seconds, either time. One time, I thought I WAS actually going to die, and I still never lost consciousness. It all depends on which structures are being affected, and whether the hyoid bone is broken or not. Outside of those experiences, I'm certainly not an expert, so I can't go any farther than to say that I expect strangulation deaths may happen in a number of ways. Someone who is angry enough to strangle someone else may have no real concept of time and may do more damage than they realized in different time frames.

I recall a LE officer on a crime documentary saying it can take up to 8 minutes to kill someone by manual strangulation. What a gruesome and sadistic thing to do to another human being.

 

[MountainGal33]

The thing is, people often act irrationally when they're panicked. It's more plausible to realize Brian was in a state of panic, and that's why his actions don't make much sense.

Or he was high - fresh after killing - just another take (moo). Like he enjoyed it…

Walking into town “high” from it. Hate to say it but BL did end up walking to and being picked up outside a laundromat/shower in town.

Could have showered off purposely…

I had said yesterday we don’t know of any serious personality disorders with BL. Without discussing that (not allowed)

GP was strangled with bare hands …

Pretty intense.

Gabby Petito Update: Victim Was Strangled With Bare Hands, Coroner Confirms As Experts Raise Laundrie's Potential 'Partner Abuse' Red Flags

 

[Estelle]

It sounds like they were reaching for any excuse. His mother isn't built anything like BL. That is beyond ridiculous for LE to suggest otherwise.
IMO LE blew it, they know they blew it and that's the best excuse they could come up with.
They underestimated BL's ability to leave mom and dad behind and go on the lam.
They most likely never thought BL would do that because, if he was going to run from LE, he would have taken off from the crime scene and never returned to Florida. Especially with the victim's van and credit card(s)!

LE didn't think he had it in him to take off and leave the comfort and protection of home and family. So they snoozed on him and it came back to bite them in the ar$e. IMO.

IMO all LE in this case have not been up to standard from Moab to Florida. The person monitoring the CCTV who mistakenly identified RL as BL needs a new pair of glasses. Shouldn't another colleague have also checked? They seemed so complacent and trusting of a man who was a possible suspect of some sort of crime.

However, I have been very impressed by the media in this case especially AB and BE. They are excellent.

 

[Bertha96]

The problem I have with the alibi theory is that the 2 people he told were people who picked him up hitchhiking. Where would he ever find those people again to testify for him? Remember most homicide cases don’t get this type of publicity, he would have had no way of knowing this would go viral and random people would come forward with tips. I would think that if he was going about setting up an alibi he would have talked to workers at a shop or a restaurant or gas station or someplace he would be able to tell police -go ask them, they’ll tell you I was there. MOO

I think that is why he offered at least one of them $200 for a ride. THAT is memorable and something that normally wouldn't be offered by a young hitchhiker.
IMO after he strangled GP, he hitchhiked in attempt to establish an alibi because he mistakenly thought her body would be found shortly after he left. As someone posted earlier, he could have then said he wasn't the perpetrator because he had been riding with a stranger and when he left GP she was still alive. When he was dropped off near the campsite and no one had found her, he panicked. He had returned to an active crime scene and who knows if someone saw him there at that moment (watching from a far) or would find him there momentarily.
In a panic, he jumped into the van and took off for home. I wouldn't be surprised if he made a phone call shortly after GP's death and was given advice to establish an alibi. Obviously, the plan failed. IMO.

 

[Shellinaya]

That's interesting because the couple that picked him up outside Jackson commented that for someone who had been camping he didnt smell bad at all. How many days difference are those 2 sightings?

The two incidents of women who picked him up were on the same day, same hour probably.
You're right. The first women said he didn't smell bad, the 2nd woman did. I chalk that up to the 1st woman who gave him a ride maybe being a smoker or maybe she had a cold, or sinus issues ... all kinds of things can dull your sense of smell. The 2nd woman who picked him up probably just had a better sense of smell. Or, they picked up different people!

JMO and speculation...

 

[housewife]

I haven't read anywhere that Brian was in a rage fit at the restaurant. Maybe I missed it? The witness said he was acting "aggressive" (not sure what that means), but wasn't screaming at the waitress. If he was in a rage, I feel that we would have heard more witness stories than one person who noticed the encounter, and said that her husband saw it--only because she pointed it out to him. And she has no idea what it was about? I would consider a rage fit to be one that everyone heard and was unwillingly aware of the subject matter. IMO.

From an abc affiliate

Angelo says Laundrie was screaming at the hostess and Petito was in tears and apologizing.
"It looked as though they were like almost getting kicked out," Angelo told ABC News. "It wasn't necessarily between them, it was more so Gabby abruptly leaving the restaurant crying, and Brian was just evidently really upset, pissed off, I would say. I would say Gabby was upset, he was angry, and he was just being very temperamental towards the restaurant staff."​

 

[Estelle]

I think that is why he offered at least one of them $200 for a ride. THAT is memorable and something that normally wouldn't be offered by a young hitchhiker.
IMO after he strangled GP, he hitchhiked in attempt to establish an alibi because he mistakenly thought her body would be found shortly after he left. As someone posted earlier, he could have then said he wasn't the perpetrator because he had been riding with a stranger and when he left GP she was still alive. When he was dropped off near the campsite and no one had found her, he panicked. He had returned to an active crime scene and who knows if someone saw him there at that moment (watching from a far) or would find him there momentarily.
In a panic, he jumped into the van and took off for home. I wouldn't be surprised if he made a phone call shortly after GP's death and was given advice to establish an alibi. Obviously, the plan failed. IMO.

I have often wondered whether that couple accepted the $200! Perhaps they refused it but that would certainly be memorable.

 

[Bertha96]

Could his mother have tried to make herself look like Brian, so LE would think he was back home? Even with just a baseball cap on, it's obvious she's not Brian. Maybe a hoodie pulled up? But not just a baseball cap.

She would have had to remove her head and place it on a completely different body type. There's nothing she could do in less than a month to alter her body to look like BL's. IMO.

 

[Shellinaya]

I hate to drag personal experience into this, but I have been choked a couple of times. I did not go unconscious in 30 seconds, either time. One time, I thought I WAS actually going to die, and I still never lost consciousness. It all depends on which structures are being affected, and whether the hyoid bone is broken or not. Outside of those experiences, I'm certainly not an expert, so I can't go any farther than to say that I expect strangulation deaths may happen in a number of ways. Someone who is angry enough to strangle someone else may have no real concept of time and may do more damage than they realized in different time frames.

I had no idea this was such a common thing that happens to women. Someone else here was choked too. Maybe more than one person here. I'm glad you survived it.


I agree, I think BL went into another state of mind in order to be able to do what he did. Some horrible darkness must have been living in his mind and growing larger every day those last 2-3 weeks of Gabby's life.

 

[MadMcGoo]

"Based on the Moab stop Brian must have been a violent, volatile abuser". We do not know that.

"Based on a vague recollection from an employee of a food establishment at which 'an incident occurred', Brian must have been in such a rage that he immediately thereafter killed his fiancé". We do not know that.

"The Laundries immediately retained legal council upon their son's return from travel with their soon-to-be daughter-in-law, whom wasn't present then, therefore they must know exactly what happened and be complicit in him 'hiding out'". We do not know that.

WE DO NOT KNOW A LOT! Simple as that. I hope questions are answered and we know more some day, but none of us are entitled to answers. I imagine all the families know quite a bit. Which has got to be excruciating for all of them.

 

[BCSleuth]

It sounds like they were reaching for any excuse. His mother isn't built anything like BL. That is beyond ridiculous for LE to suggest otherwise.
IMO LE blew it, they know they blew it and that's the best excuse they could come up with.
They underestimated BL's ability to leave mom and dad behind and go on the lam.
They most likely never thought BL would do that because, if he was going to run from LE, he would have taken off from the crime scene and never returned to Florida. Especially with the victim's van and credit card(s)!

LE didn't think he had it in him to take off and leave the comfort and protection of home and family. So they snoozed on him and it came back to bite them in the ar$e. IMO.

But it sounds like they did see Brian leave in the Mustang. So when the Mustang came back they naturally assumed it was Brian driving without bothering to get a good look. They also failed to notice RL wasn't in the truck when it returned. Pretty sloppy on the NPPD's part, but I do see how it could potentially happen.

My point here would be that NPPD made a pretty big mistake. They should have known that Brian wasn't home but due to poor detective work they didn't know. And they blamed it all on the Laundries, saying they had Brian under surveillance and implying somehow the Laundries snuck him out. He drove out right under their noses and they saw him do it. I think the Laundries just might have a lawsuit here. They suffered greatly in no small part due to NPPD's misleading statements.