Gabby Petito went on a US road trip with her boyfriend. He came home. She didn’t.

More than half a million people go missing in the United States every year. Most are reunited with their families, many are not and few know their names. The disappearance and death of Gabby Petito, a bright 22-year-old from New York State, has become something starkly different — a murder-mystery that has hit close to home across the world. For Petito’s story is every parent’s nightmare made real — a daughter goes on a cross-country trip with her fiance but never returns home. Her boyfriend does but he refuses to co-operate with police when her parents file a missing persons report. In a strange twist, he then disappears. Her parents’ anguish is laid bare in newspapers, on television and across the internet. For in the social media age, this is also a crime for our times — Petito posted extensively about her trip with Brian Laundrie, 23, on YouTube and to her followers on Instagram (a group that has posthumously grown to 1.3 million). Tanned, relaxed and seemingly happy, she poses idyllically among the sun and sunsets of America’s grand beauty. There is an instant connection to Petito — though we don’t actually know her — and her seemingly enviable life. Clearly nothing was as it seems, but then darkness also attracts. Amateur sleuths have pored over Petito’s social media accounts and absorbed every detail of the case since she was reported missing. The @findgabbypetito Instagram page has more than 38,000 followers and, emboldened by their burgeoning online community, they questioned why police had taken so long to reveal details of Petito’s death. They have speculated she was pregnant with Laundrie’s child, though there is no evidence to support this. Some claim to have spotted a sonogram in a YouTube video showing the couple’s van. Others say a Pinterest board on her account titled “Oh Baby” proves their theory. There is a stream of information from those who claim to have seen the couple on their travels. Some accounts have been confirmed by police, most not. Adding fuel to the flames, family has been pitted against family. Petito’s parents, Joe and Nichole, and step-parents, Jim Schmidt and Tara Petito, have appeared in exclusive interviews on the Dr Phil television show, in which they claimed that Laundrie’s parents, Chris and Roberta, were cowards and had not done enough to help police find their son. Petito’s disappearance also reignited debate in the US about the coverage given to missing people dependent on their colour. Suzette Hackney, writing in USA Today, said: “As the public outcry and breathless media updates swell, Petito has simply become ‘America’s daughter’ (a phrase coined by Fox News). She was young, vibrant and had a significant social media following because of her bubbly personality. She was blonde, petite and attractive. And she was white.” The tendency to sideline missing people of colour was coined “missing white woman syndrome” by Gwen Ifill, the late PBS television service anchor. ABC News in America reported that in Wyoming, where Petito’s body was found, a state taskforce paper this year found while 21 per cent of Native American people remained missing for 30 days or longer, only 11 per cent of white people remained missing that long. It also found that 30 per cent of Native American missing and murdered people made the news compared with 51 per cent of white people. “Everybody who is missing loved ones is saying ‘why wasn’t my case done like that?’” Paula Cosey Hill told the ABC. “It’s very hard because it takes you back to when your child went missing.” Cosey Hill’s then-16-year-old daughter, Shemika Cosey, disappeared without a trace near her home in St Louis, Missouri, just a few days after Christmas in 2008. She has never been found. Cosey Hill described watching the search for Petito unfold as an “emotional rollercoaster” because she had both grieved for the Petito family and reflected on what didn’t happen in the aftermath of her daughter’s disappearance. Gabrielle Venora Petito grew up in Blue Point in New York State. Her parents had two children — Petito and her younger brother TJ — before divorcing. Both remarried and Petito became the eldest child of six in their blended families. She had known Laundrie since they were students together at Bayport-Blue Point High School and they started dating in 2019. Later that year, they moved to live with Laundrie’s parents in North Port, Florida. According to posts on both their Instagram accounts, they got engaged in July last year. The cross-country trip was their dream and Petito worked hard as a pharmacy technician in Florida to save money. In July, they embraced the “van life” subculture in a Ford Transit they had done up as a home. Police said their goal had been to reach Oregon by the end of October, winding through national parks in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming along the way. Petito excitedly shared her journey with her family by phoning and texting them and with others by posting regularly on social media. On August 12, police in Moab, Utah, received a 911 emergency call from a person wanting to report a domestic dispute. An audio recording provided by the Grand County Sheriff’s Office reveals the caller described a white van with a Florida licence plate. “The gentleman was slapping the girl,” the caller says. “They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off.” Police pulled over the van later that day. In it were Petito and Laundrie. “We’ve just been fighting this morning, some personal issues,” bodycam video shows an emotional Petito telling police. Laundrie had scratches on his face. “Both the male and female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn’t wish to see anyone charged with a crime,” a report from officer Eric Pratt says. Laundrie flew to Tampa, Florida, from Salt Lake City, Utah, on August 17. Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino told the CNN television network it was “to obtain some items and empty and close the storage unit to save money as they contemplated extending the road trip”. On August 23, Laundrie returned to Salt Lake City to rejoin Petito, Bertolino said. On August 27, a Louisiana couple holidaying in Jackson, Wyoming, claimed they saw Petito and Laundrie involved in a “commotion” as they were leaving The Merry Piglets restaurant. Nina Angelo, who was at the restaurant with her boyfriend, told police that Petito was in tears and Laundrie was visibly angry. A restaurant manager told CNN she saw “an incident” but did not describe what had happened. She said the restaurant did not have surveillance video of the incident. Petito family lawyer Richard Stafford has said Petito was in contact with her family during this time. She had FaceTimed her mother on August 24 to say they were leaving Utah to head to the Bridger-Teton National Park in Wyoming. The next day there were multiple texts from Petito and her family believed she was in the Tetons. On August 27, there were more texts between Petito and her mother. On August 29, two women reported to police they had separately given Laundrie a lift in their car in Wyoming. Miranda Baker said Laundrie claimed he had been camping by himself for a few days while Petito was at their van working on social media posts. Baker said Laundrie told her he had been camping outside the Tetons, near Snake River. He got out of the car near Jackson Lake Dam when Baker said she was heading elsewhere. Norma Jean Jalovec told CNN she picked up Laundrie not far from the dam the same day and gave him a ride to the Spread Creek camping area, where Petito’s remains were later found. According to Jalovec, Laundrie told her he and his fiancee had a travel blog, she was in their van at the camping area working on it and he had been hiking along the Snake River embankment for a few days. Jalovec said she picked him up about 6.15pm, which was just a few minutes after Baker said Laundrie left her vehicle. Petito’s family told police they last received communication from her phone on August 30 — but they do not believe the message they received was from her. It read simply “No service in Yosemite”. If it was sent to allay any concerns, it did the opposite. Petito’s family thought she was in Wyoming, two States away from Yosemite in eastern California. They now believe that the earlier texts may also not have been from Petito. Two days after the Yosemite text was sent, Laundrie arrived home in the van without Petito. Ten days later, on September 11, Petito’s family officially reported her missing to police in Suffolk County, in New York State, after not being able to contact her. They believed that Laundrie was missing with their daughter, though concerned calls to his family were not returned. After the missing persons report was filed “a detective came to my door and let me know that the van was in Florida”, Petito’s mother told Dr Phil McGraw. Laundrie had been home for more than a week. That night, North Port authorities went to Laundrie’s Florida home and asked to speak to him and his family but “we were essentially handed the information for their attorney”, a police spokesman said. “Two people left on a trip and one person returned,” North Port police department chief Todd Garrison said pointedly. On September 16, in a letter read by the Petito family lawyer at a police news briefing, the Petitos begged Laundrie’s parents and sister Cassie to help the investigation. “Please, if you or your family have any decency left, please tell us where Gabby is located,” Richard Stafford read. “Tell us if we are even looking in the right place. All we want is for Gabby to come home. We haven’t been able to sleep or eat and our lives are falling apart.” On September 17, Laundrie’s family asked police to come to their home. In an extraordinary development, they told police they hadn’t seen their son since September 14. “We’ve been trying all week to talk to his family, to talk to Brian, and now they’ve called us here on Friday, we’ve gone to the home and they’re saying now they have not seen their son,” a spokesman told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. His disappearance sparked a wide search in Florida’s Carlton Reserve, a nature area with more than 150km of hiking trails. Police point out that Laundrie was simply a person of interest. He was wanted only for fraudulently using a debit card that did not belong to him between August 30 and September 1. The indictment did not say whether the card belonged to Petito. The discovery of remains at a camp site near the Tetons on September 19 changed everything. Days later, they were confirmed to be those of Petito. This week, it was confirmed she had died by strangulation. Interest in the case has continued unabated as family and friends speak out, former officers blame police for not keeping a closer eye on Laundrie and the theorists spin their theories. When the smoke clears, the sad truth that will remain is a devastated family lost their beloved daughter.

Gabby Petito went on a US road trip with her boyfriend. He came home. She didn’t.

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