Found Deceased WY - Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, 22, Grand Teton National Park, 25 Aug 2021 #2

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I’m just having trouble with what he thought was going to happen. He got home sept 1, with her car and no Gabby. Did he think no one would come look for her…ever? Why bring the van home and keep it there?

Has anyone made visual contact with Brian since he has been in Florida?

Why are all these cases so weird these days?!
Some absurd notion that he covered all of his tracks? I'm assuming he told his parents something, likely not the whole truth. He's had plenty of time to prepare for the next step, maybe in-patient psychiatric care/rehab? What would the attorneys here recommend to a client in this situation (assuming an arrest is coming)?
 
Here's the complete text:

Incident



Pratt, Eric Aug 13, 2021

I arrived on scene and observed as two park officers also arrived. I assisted Officer Robbins with his investigation until I was called away to a report of an Intoxicated male near MRH posing a safety risk to himself or others.

Before leaving , I spoke with the male driver of the van, the female passenger, and also called Chris to get more information from him. All three individuals gave me a similar and consistent story, consisting of the basic idea that the driver of the van. a male, had some sort of argument with the female, Gabbie, as I recall. The male tried to create distance by telling Gabbie to go take a walk to calm down. she didn't want to be separated from the mate and began slapping him. He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van. he tried to lock her out and succeeded except for his driver's door, she opened that and forced her way over him and into the vehicle before it drove off. No one reported that the male struck the female. both the male and the female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime. There were no significant injuries reported and both agreed that Gabbie suffers from serious anxiety, etc. It appeared that this incident was more accurately categorized as a mental/emotional health "break" than a domestic assault.

I had to leave but I understand that Officer Robbins got the male lodging through Seekhaven. Gabbie retained possession of the van, and they agreed to separate for the night. No charges were filed and no one wished for charges to be filed or for the separation to take place, although that was at minimum what Officer Robbins required In lieu of making a case against Gabbie for domestic assault . Gabbie is a 22 year old female who is approximately 5'2"-·5'4" and -110~120 lbs. while her fiance is older. taller. and much heavier than her. He had no fear for his safety and did not exhibit any indicators that he may be a victim of "battered boyfriend syndrome" etc. He was assessed to be at low risk of danger or harm as a result or his proximity to his fianceGabbie. Nothing further. EOS. EMP.



Robbins, Daniel Scott Aug 13, 2021

On 8-12-21 at approximately 1644 hours, I responded to a possible domestic violence In progress call. A van, with both a male and female as occupants, was reported leaving the area of 39 E 100 North northbound on Main Street. One of the witnesses described the vehicle as a white Ford Transit Van with a black ladder on the rear with Florida license plate QFTG03. Witness, Christopher, reported seeing a male, later identified as Brian Laundrie, and a female. later identified as Gabrielle Petito, arguing over a phone. Christopher stated that when Brian got into the van, he saw what appeared to him as Gabrielle hitting Brian in the arm and then climbing through the driver's window as if Brian had locked her out and she was trying to find a way in.

I located a white van that matched the description on North Main Street at the Highway 128 turn off. After I crossed the bridge, I was able to catch up to the van at the turn off to Arches National Park. I confirmed the vehicle's license plate and initiated the stop. I followed the vehicle as it continued towards the entrance gate to Arches National Park. I noted the van traveling approximately 45 miles per hour in the 15 mile per hour speed zone. After I had activated my lights to Initiate a traffic stop. I watched the van cross the double yellow dividing line in lane one. merge to lane two. and abruptly swerve to the right. When the vehicle swerved, both the front and rear passenger side wheels hit the curb. A short distance before the entrance gate, the vehicle came to a stop.

I approached the vehicle and saw the only occupants being Gabrielle and Brian. Gabrielle. who was in the passenger seat, was crying uncontrollably. I asked Gabrielle to get out of the vehicle to speak with me. Gabrielle told me that she suffers from ………………….. with ……………………. She continued, because of her …………….. and ………….. combined with little arguments she and Brian had been having that day, she was struggling with her mental health, which led to the incident that was reported to fa\v enforcement. Gabrielle stated that when saw my lights, she hit Brian in the arm to get his attention. which in tum caused him to hit the curb while I was following them. I asked Gabrielle if her Intention was to hurt Brian and her response was that she did not Intend to hurt him but rather get his attention to notice me as I was behind them with my lights on. At no point in my investigation did Gabrielle stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose. or rub her knees with her hands.



Robbins, Daniel Scott Aw 13, 2021

After I sat Gabrielle In the backseat of my car. I asked Brian to step out of the vehicle to speak with me. He told me they both suffer from……………….. and although her ………………... Is more advanced than his. Issues between the two had been building over the last few days. This in turn. caused them to argue more than usual. Brian told me neither he nor Gabrielle take medication for their ..…………. Brian explained he and Gabrielle have been traveling together for the last 4 or 5 months. That time spent created emotional strain between them and increased the number of arguments. While arguing near Main Street. he had attempted to separate from her in so they could both calm their emotions. He got into their van and Gabrielle had gone into a manic state. Brian said Gabrielle, thinking he was going to leave her in Moab without a ride, went to slap him. As Gabrielle started to swing. Brian pushed her away to avoid the slap. As a result Gabrielle off balance, but still caught Brian's face with some fingers causing some minor visible scratches. Brian continued that when he had seen my lights. he thought Gabrielle had grabbed the wheel of the van and pulled it. causing the van to hit the curb. I observed some small scratches to Brian's right arm and when I asked him about them, he supposed they must've happened when Gabrielle was trying to get his attention about me being behind them with my lights on. This. however. was not consistent with Gabrielle's statement, further suggesting her confused and emotional state.

After evaluating the totality of the circumstances. I do not believe the situation escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis. I then determined the most appropriate course of action would be to help separate the parties for the night so they could reset their mental states without interference from one another, and although they did express a desire to remain together, they both ultimately agreed to be separated until the following day. Accordingly. I was able to contact Safe Haven and get Brian a hotel room for the night. I instructed both Brian and Gabrielle to take advantage of this time apart to relax their emotions and regain control of their anxiety. I also asked them to avoid contacting each other until the next morning if at all possible. Gabrielle maintained possession of the van while I transported Brian to the hotel. They did both have their own cell phones in ease of emergency.

Around 1900 hours, I went to where witness Christopher ………... lived and had him fill out a statement form. Christopher told me that he was not entirety sure what it is he had seen. but feared the worst which is why he came forward as a witness and agreed to complete a written statement.

Body camera video is available on Evidence .com

The statement form from Christopher has been filed at Moab City Police Department.

End of Report

D. Robbins

2T9

8-13-21

https://mobile.twitter.com/kkuizon/status/1438202349395267584/photo/1
https://twitter.com/kkuizon/status/1438207512684212229/photo/1
Thanks for the transcript !

She was very afraid of him leaving her !!!! :(
Imo.
 
I think she met someone else and is camping at a place with no internet.As for not calling home,maybe she's not ready for all the drama to unfold yet.

I’d love for you to be right, but I think there’s very little chance of it. If that were true, the boyfriend would be able to tell LE where he saw her last, security cameras would be able to confirm that she had gone one way and he had gone another, and he wouldn’t be a POI.

MOO
 
Yes it’s reminiscent of his behavior - I mentioned in a prior thread that even Fotis Dulos in his arrogance surrendered his phone with his attorney the next day after Jennifer was reported missing - he underestimated the ability of LE to retrieve data
JMO
OT, but between JFD in your profile pic and having to read FD's name, it just makes me so sad that we're here years later with no answers... :(
 
Just a few notes.
  • BL could have taken an Uber to the airport.
  • Situation seems to be emotionally immature people setting high expectations for a cross-country trip and assuming it will turn out to be easy and lucrative like other van life youtubers channels they watched.
  • They did a similar trip the year before in her Nissan Sentra but likely stayed in hotels as they did not have a van (maybe tent-camped) but another year in a relationship can be very different than the previous and 24/7 in a small van can exacerbate small issues into large ones.
  • They are 22 and 23.
  • The couple had been together for two years but dated or knew each other in high school. They said they were engaged - that's pretty serious. They had been living with his parents, so I can see his parents flying BL home if he was upset over a broken engagement. I can see BL flying back if they decided to reconcile. Then a few more nights of arguing as the relationship finally ends. I speak from experience here.
  • GP could have told him to take the van and leave, she was sick of the whole thing. And walked off. I could see BL being exhausted after going through the emotional wringer and just getting in the van and driving off without really considering the consequences.
  • Completely normal people fight in cars and one person sometimes gets mad enough to get out and walk. And the other person is mad enough to let them. This can happen without one person killing the other or one person committing suicide.
  • MOO
 
Wait was that the last evening the ladies were seen alive? B/c suddenly BL had a night alone and a hotel room to himself. I was thinking it was a day later though, making the timeline wrong but I might be wrong.

Yeah, the next day is when they were last seen at the bar but we don’t know what time BL actually got back to GP and the van after leaving the hotel on the 13th.
 
Or… he drove off to “cool off”, came back & discovered there had been an animal attack, freaked with his own mental health issues & here we are.

Then again, no parent on earth (I hope) would advise their son to then drive the deceased’s auto back, many states away, & retain an attorney, followed by the 5th.

So… nah. No wolves, bison, grizzlies, moose or cougars are guilty here. The incident report won’t hold a candle to what actually happened right before he hid her & headed to the protection of his parents. Imho, moo, etc

Gabby has been described by her own family as being a very, very free person. It would only make sense for BL’s parents to tell him to come home if they thought she had gone somewhere with other campers. They may have thought she would retrieve the van there later since she had recently been living in Florida.
 
So I’m curious, and I know we don’t know this, but WHY was it so important to move GP’s things out of the house during their trip? And where was she planning to go after the trip? Was BL planning to go with her? Stay with his parents? It’s such a bizarre thing to do and yet return on the trip and keep on with the relationship?
Just thinking here but maybe he called mom crying that she had broken up with him and they decided to remove her things. However, I'm thinking it was more than that. I think his parents know exactly what has occurred and they are circling the wagons around their son. JMO
 
This doesn’t make any sense,

It says BL left GP at Fairfield Inn at Salt Lake City, and flew back home to Florida from August 17-23 to help his father empty out a storage unit where he and GP had their things in. But was seen at the Kicks 66 convenience store by a cashier on August 21st. When he’s supposed to be at Florida!

“At the Kicks 66 convenience store located down the street just a few hundred yards away from the Fairfield Inn, a cashier recognized the couple.

The cashier told the DailyMail.com, 'They came into together on the night of August 21. I remember them because he was telling her to 'hurry up.'

She didn't say anything back to him, at one point she left the store for a few minutes and came back in. They bought bottles of water, a few packages of instant noodles and donuts.

The cashier pointed out that the Salt Lake City FBI headquarters is across the street from the convenience store, also within a few hundred feet of the Fairfield Inn. 'Their vehicle would have had to pass by the FBI cameras outside of the building pointing toward the street on several occasions.'

Yet, it says GP was last seen on August 24 checking out of Fairfield Inn with BL, in Salt Lake City.

Last text message missing 'van-life woman' Gabby Petitio sent to her mother is revealed | Daily Mail Online

My hunch is that he went back to SLC earlier than planned after the police announced the discovery of the two women.
 
So I’m curious, and I know we don’t know this, but WHY was it so important to move GP’s things out of the house during their trip? And where was she planning to go after the trip? Was BL planning to go with her? Stay with his parents? It’s such a bizarre thing to do and yet return on the trip and keep on with the relationship?
Personally, I don't think LE will find any evidence that he flew home and then back. If they do, I'll be very surprised. I think he drove home before anyone but his parents knew and the moving of her thing occurred at that time. JMO
 
I am feverishly trying to catch up on this fast moving thread. I don't think that BL nor his parents are talking because they know what they have to say isn't going to change the unfortunate outcome that Gabby is gone. They are listening to their attorney and in protecting their own mode. Sad but true. Hopefully he'll negotiate and will tell where Gabby is so that she can come home. Her parents seem to already know that she's gone.

I do believe that the flight home in August was over a break up and not a storage move. Who is telling the story that BL flew home to move Gabby's things? I'm assuming it's coming from Gabby's parents because BL is not talking. So she may have been covering up what was really going on between them. I think those two were like two sticks of dynamite together and had been for some time.

I believe that they made up while he was in Florida and he flew back to be with her and then the fighting started again and something bad happened to Gabby. BL couldn't call his parents to fly home so he drove her van home, he probably had very little money and no transportation other than the van. The digital data is going to solve much of this. Where is Gabby and where is her phone?
 
Some absurd notion that he covered all of his tracks? I'm assuming he told his parents something, likely not the whole truth. He's had plenty of time to prepare for the next step, maybe in-patient psychiatric care/rehab? What would the attorneys here recommend to a client in this situation (assuming an arrest is coming)?
Rehab would be all about optics, as it would not protect him from arrest. It’s not some sort of sanctuary.
 
Just thinking here but maybe he called mom crying that she had broken up with him and they decided to remove her things. However, I'm thinking it was more than that. I think his parents know exactly what has occurred and they are circling the wagons around their son. JMO
If he told them then I bet her parents are biding their time and speaking with their attorneys that if Gabby isn't found how soon they could file a civil suit against Laundries. They'll then be able to get them into court and someone's bound to give some information...unless all three plead the 5th.

I wonder how long they can stay in the "background" of an investigation that Brian is clearly at the front of.
 
It doesn’t make sense to me either. I wonder (total speculation) if he told his parents about the police incident and they told him to get himself home right away to get some distance. That would make more sense as to why he was gone for a week. Time to cool off and then decide to go back and get GP.

The excuse of moving things in and/or out of storage doesn’t make sense economically. It also doesn’t take that long to move things from one place to the other.

The bottom line to me is - moving items stored 2500 miles away doesn’t constitute an emergency but almost getting arrested in a DV incident just might in the eyes of concerned parents.

IMO
Time to cool off and sort things out in his head. After reading the Moab police reports, this idea makes a lot of sense. They needed to get away from each other and try to calm down. Perhaps BL was honest with his parents about what happened and they convinced him to come back and try to get himself together. I don't believe the storage unit story. I think DP stayed in the hotel for the same reason, to try to calm her mind get herself together. Why not the van? It's possible she was not in a good state mentally and nobody wanted her behind the wheel of a vehicle.
 
The story about the two women being found dead was announced on the 20th.

If GP had happened to see on the local news on the hotel TV or online, that the two women who told BL to knock it off, stop hitting a woman, had turned up dead, could BL, having been asked by GP if he knew anything about it, perhaps have hastened his trip back to Utah, from the planned 23rd (as GP’s mother believed) to the 20th/21st?

I feel like he fled the state after having done something (bad) and leaving to move stuff from the storage unit is a cover. Or perhaps there was something incriminating in the storage unit? A lot of money and time spent to just move their stuff.
 
I think she met someone else and is camping at a place with no internet.As for not calling home,maybe she's not ready for all the drama to unfold yet.

The problem with the end of that theory - she had already called her mother on August 25th (? I believe that was the late date) with relationship talk, as her mother had told reporters, which made her mother eventually reveal they were no longer engaged and were just "boyfriend and girlfriend" according to the DailyMail. (I quoted that in previous post)

I think they broke up once and for all - JMO - and that it didn't go well. After that probable argument, it's impossible to know what happened.
 
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