It sounds like something out of a script for a movie. A man and a woman go on a journey, but only the man returns. There is no trace of the woman. Now the FBI is also investigating.
North Port – A young couple went traveling together, presented brilliantly beautiful clips on the Internet. Now authorities are looking nationwide for 22-year-old Gabby Petito from Florida.
She’s been missing since the road trip with her boyfriend. Petito’s 23-year-old partner, who returned from the trip alone, is silent. Many people in the USA look spellbound on the case: “I pray for your safe return,” writes a user on the Instagram page of the missing.
Your friend is not yet ready to be questioned by investigators and has not provided any helpful details, the police said on Twitter. “Two people went on a trip, one came back,” Todd Garrison, North Port Florida police chief, told journalists. The Federal Police FBI supports the investigation. We ask for information from the population.
According to US media reports, the couple set off on their trip across the United States in July. With a converted white Ford Transit it wanted to drive from the east coast of the USA to the west coast and visit the famous national parks there. The two documented the trip on social media. Petito was in regular contact with her family, it is said. But at the end of August this was abruptly broken off.
In mid-August, around two weeks before their disappearance, Utah police were reportedly called over to the couple and their car over a possible domestic violence case. US media published footage from a police body camera showing the 22-year-old crying in the white van. In the over an hour long video, the couple reported, among other things, disputes. The complaint had not been made.
According to the police, the friend returned home on September 1, and ten days later, Petito’s parents reported their daughter as missing. Investigators have now confiscated the van. Both the missing family’s family and the police are calling on Petito’s friend – who is also referred to as her fiancé in some reports – to speak up. A friend’s lawyer said in US media, however, that he had silenced his client, as the police often initially focus on the partner during investigations. The 23-year-old is considered a “person of interest” by the police. dpa
