By Emily Gianni
The internet has recently exploded with news about the young woman, Gabby Petito, who went missing on a cross country trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie. Originally, Laundrie was known as her fiancè, but Gabby’s mom, Ms. Schmit, thinks the engagement was called off. She was recorded missing on September 11, after her mother had last made contact with her in late August.
It has been speculated that even though Gabby Petito had been posting on social media during late August, it was not actually her posting. Petito normally includes her location in pictures, and in her last two Instagram pictures, no location was included. Petito’s mom also says that the last text from Petito was “odd.” Petito wrote, “Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls.” Her mother found this weird because Petito never called her grandfather Stan. Petito’s mom also found her texts odd because Gabby normally informs her mother what she is constantly doing, and one of her texts sent on August 30 wrote, “No service in Yosemite.” Ms. Schmit knew this text was not from her daughter because, if she had cell service to send the text, then she would have sent something more meaningful. The warrant of the investigation claimed, on September 15, that her phone was turned off for about 15 days.
During the trip, Laundrie’s car was pulled over by the responding officer, Daniel Scott Robbins. Police officers responded to a potential domestic violence incident between Petito and Laundrie. Robbins saw Petito crying in the passenger seat. She told the officer that she was arguing with Laundrie and she was struggling with her mental health. He recommended that Laundrie and Petito spend the night apart from each other; this abuse situation was not the only incident reported during the trip. There was another incident outside of a grocery store where they were physically fighting.
Her body was found in a national park in Wyoming, on September 19. The F.B.I claims that it was a homicide. Brian Laundrie is a person of interest, and has also gone missing. A coroner in Wyoming is going to perform the autopsy on Gabby Petito and hopefully justice can be brought to her.