Gabby Petito, 22, is dead. According to a report, she was strangled. Now the police admits investigative errors.
Update from Wednesday, October 27th, 2021, 9:00 a.m.: The investigative authorities in the US state of Florida have admitted an error in the Gabby Petito case. One day in September, Petito’s boyfriend was apparently mistaken for his mother, said North Port police spokesman Josh Taylor, a local television station. Petito, 22, was reported missing on September 11th. The boyfriend’s parents’ home in Florida, where the couple had lived, was then monitored by police. Shortly afterwards, Petito’s friend also disappeared.
The 23-year-old drove away in his car shortly after the young woman was reported missing. The police initially assumed that the young man had returned to his parents’ house two days later.
“I think it was his mother who wore a baseball cap,” said police spokesman Taylor now. Both were of a similar stature. When the person with the baseball cap got out of the car, they thought it was Petito’s friend. “No case is perfect,” said Taylor.
Gabby Petito: Police admit mistakes
Petito had not returned from a trip to the USA with her boyfriend that summer. After an intensive search, Petito’s body was finally found in September in the state of Wyoming. The couple had traveled there as part of their USA road trip. According to the coroner, the young woman was strangled.
Last week, body parts of her boyfriend were finally discovered in a Florida nature reserve. In the case, he was considered to be the relevant person for the investigation.
There have recently been contradicting information about when the parents of Petito’s boyfriend reported their son missing. The police had originally stated that the parents only informed the police days after the 23-year-old disappeared. The family lawyer said he had contacted the police days earlier on behalf of the family.
The case has received both US and international attention. The couple had shared numerous pictures and videos from their trip on social networks.
Update from Friday, 10/22/2021, 7:00 a.m.: The search for the friend of the killed 22-year-old Gabby Petito is complete: body parts found in the US state of Florida have been identified as his human remains. This was determined with the help of a dental examination, the FBI said on Thursday in Denver. The remains were found on Wednesday in a nature reserve. Investigators also found a laptop and a backpack that belonged to the 23-year-old. In the Petito case he was not explicitly considered a suspect, the police classified him as a “person of interest”.
Petito had not returned from a trip to the USA with her boyfriend that summer. The case is attracting attention both in the US and internationally – not least because the Florida couple shared numerous pictures and videos from their trip on social networks.
Gabby Petito: Missing travel blogger has been strangled
Update from Wednesday, October 13th, 2021, 12.30 p.m.: After a road trip with her boyfriend, the American teenager Gabby Petito was first missing and then found dead. Now the human remains have been examined pathologically, with gruesome results. According to the coroner, Petito has been strangled. “The cause of death is strangulation,” said Brent Blue, coroner for the Teton District, Wyoming, on Tuesday (local time) at a press conference.
According to the coroner, Petito’s body had been in the wild for three to four weeks before it was found in mid-September. The girl had disappeared across the United States on a road trip with her boyfriend. Eventually her body was discovered in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Forensic medicine had already established that Gabby Petito was a homicide victim, but has only now released the exact cause of death. Her boyfriend Brian Laudrie is still being searched for by an arrest warrant.
Gabby Petito, 22, was murdered
First report from Wednesday, 09/22/2021, 8:00 a.m .: Idaho Falls – What was feared for a long time is now a reality: 22-year-old Gabby Petito is dead. The body found on Sunday in the Bridger-Teton National Forest is the young one YouTuber Gabby Petito, the FBI confirmed on Tuesday (21.09.2021, local time). The autopsy report indicates that the young woman was murdered. Further investigations on the human remains are pending.
The person of interest in the case is Brian Laundrie, Gabby Petito’s fiancé. Together with the 23-year-old, she set off on a road trip through the western United States. On September 1st, however, Brian returns without Gabby. Since his return, he has refused to give any information about the disappearance of his partner. He has also been missing since Friday (September 17, 2021).
USA: Police are looking for Brian Laundrie
The search for the fiancé of the killed Gabby Petito began on Sunday. Investigators started the manhunt in the Carlton nature reserve, which is near his home, the police in North Port announced on Tuesday. The officials have so far not been able to find Laundrie in the 9,712 hectare nature reserve. He had told his parents that he would go hiking. The fiancé had disappeared by Wednesday morning German time.
“I have directed all state agencies within my jurisdiction to assist federal and local law enforcement agencies in their search,” said Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday. “We need justice for Gabby Petito.”
Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie shared their van life on social media
The couple was on a road trip through the western United States in their van and documented this trip on social media. Gabby Petito wanted to start a blog with the trip by documenting the trip on video.
But Brian Laundrie returns from the road trip alone on September 1st. Gabby Petito was reported missing by her family ten days after Laundrie returned. Laundrie’s family say they have not had any contact with him since September 14th. It is still unclear whether the 23-year-old has anything to do with the murder of his fiancée. During a house search, the emergency services did not find anything in this regard.
Gabby Petito sends one last “strange” message to her mother
Nicole Schmidt, the mother of those killed, said she received the last message from her daughter on August 27. From then on, her cell phone was switched off; the social media posts also end on this date. The news was “strange” and “worrying”. “Can you help Stan, I keep getting his voice messages and missed calls,” Gabby Petito is said to have written. “The reference to Stan was to her grandfather, but according to the mother, Gabby never calls him Stan. The mother was concerned that something was wrong with her daughter, “the Washington Post quoted from court documents. “This was not normal behavior for the family and they became increasingly worried about them.”
There is also a bodycam video from August that shows the two of them at a police checkpoint. Gabby Petitio, with tears in her eyes, claims to have slapped her boyfriend. The police officer decided to separate the couple for the night and took them to a hotel. Petito’s body was found near the point of the dispute. (lz with AFP / dpa)
