Found Deceased WY - Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, 22, Grand Teton National Park, 25 Aug 2021 #38

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Herat said:
Mexico is not a great place for a guy like BL to hang out in.

We don't have any reason to believe he can speak Spanish at all, far less well.

He is going to get a lot of attention if he is going around barefoot. The Mexican people I know are very tidy, not sloppy, and have a sense of personal appearance and decorum and barefoot is not acceptable, because it is associated with deep poverty. They'd find this very peculiar for a white guy who can't even speak Spanish. Word would get out.

His dietary habits might make it in a commune run by ex-pats, but most cheap food is loaded with cheap pork and port fat.

Someone has to be giving him money in order to do this. And he has to be living in a place where he can get along with little Spanish and little in the way of international survival skills. Like in tourist spots. Not quite the hiking into the mountains along a Mexican "Appalacian Trail" survivalist kind of life. The mountainous areas in north Mexico are dry and have little in the way to eat if you are not going to try to eat small animals or fish. Hard, tough places with cacti, which are not good for bare feet.
Click to expand...

Barefoot? Liking to hike barefoot (it is great) doesn't mean you never wear shoes!:rolleyes:
 
BuckeyeGal said:
Forgive me if this has already been discussed...
Why would BL not delete his personal social media (or potentially Gabby's if he had access to her computer/cell phone)? He had plenty of time between the time that he left Wyoming. I would think that he would realize the amount of post of posts that were potentially incriminating or suspicious.

You would think that a sense Of self preservation would outweigh any narcissistic tendencies, but maybe not.

MOO
Click to expand...

My guess is that he doesn't want to further leave a digital trail. If he so much as goes inside his Insta (or Gabby's), his position on the planet will be sussed out by the digital experts in the FBI...

If BL has a burner phone, he can't even call his parent on it, much less sign into social media...in fact, it would behoove him not to have one at this point in time...too much temptation to use it.
 
10ofRods said:
Well, I think there's a reason it's known as Van Life. It hasn't "always been" the thing it is now. I say this because I have worked in and for National Parks for years, visit many parks and forests, and...Van Life is affecting my own home town and the way of life here. It has not always been the way it is right now. Sure, people have lived on the road since Kerouac and Steinbeck. But it's different now.

First of all, it's a movement involving thousands of leaders (influencers and others), who have various businesses encouraging people to live on the road. In vans, not traditional RV's. The only place I'd ever seen them, until the past few years, was Yosemite. They take on active environmentalist stance, but there are real fights within this subculture about just what it means to do what they're. doing (gas, use of the outdoors as a toilet, etc). So there are different subdivisions within the culture. Entire businesses have sprung up around converting vans for Van Life. Prices of old vans are going through the roof.

Youtube made it possible for the Small House and Van Life movements to really get off the ground. Dyrt is now a thing, so that Van Lifers can find their way. into every inhabitable portion of National Forests and BLM land (sometimes illegally, it's a PITA for forest officials, it's been easier this year to just shut down forests rather than try to police the massive number of vans and tiny trailers on public lands, often without sanitary facilities.

Just in the past two months, three women are murdered while living the Van Life.

It used to be that these areas saw very few people. One could count on getting some place to throw up a tent, but no more. Volumes of visitors to national forests have tripled in the past 3 years and continue to rise. The average age of an RV user used to be around 60. Van Lifers are in their twenties. I guess soon they'll be in their 30's (although. of course, they give up the van life - but the curious thing is that there are plenty of new Van Lifers to replace them).

Anyway, Van Life is a youth movement similar to the commune-seeking, roadside-dwelling hippies of the 70's, except with vans that are, from my perspective, expensive. Yosemite has had to increase its vigilance about illegal overnight parking and change the rules for Camp Four altogether. I haven't seen so many policy changes in Yosemite since the 70's.

So from my point of view, this is a cultural form that is as distinctive as the Mod movement or the Hippy movement. It has a different history than RVing, and there's no way that there were as many Van Lifers in California 5 years ago, as there are now. My own town had to spend 2 years enacting new ordinances and finding ways to fund enforcement. Santa Monica is still spending so much money on enforcement, but at least now they too have laws against living in vans on its streets. People still do it, but it's lessened.

The number of images that come up if you search for Van Life right now, in late 2021, is astronomically larger than it was two years ago.
'
Van Life is closely associated with influencers or those who have figured out a passive income via the internet. Being able to live off Insta or Youtube is new and precarious, but people are doing it. I know one person who is doing it through Youtube and passive income (investments...guided entirely by a particular online community of which she is a part, perhaps now a leader).

As I write this, I'm once again questioning whether I should alert local LE when I know people are violating our anti-Van Life ordinances. But I know that they know (they have to, right?) but they only do something when a crime is committed in one of the hidden parking lots where the Van Lifers live. Alongside the Van Lifers are also the Bike Lifers, but they are a very small group (living in the same parking lots). And there is crime associated with these places. So now we have different kinds of homeless; the major places where the homeless camp (with their tents, grocery carts, etc) are still the same. But now we have these other homeless populations as well.

When I use the phrase "Van Life" I am referring to this movement - and not to the people who lived in their cars during the Great Depression. Indeed, living in a car is not considered Van Life by Van Lifers.
Click to expand...
I think Nomadland, Bob Wells and Home On Wheels Alliance have made Vanlife seem more plausible among my age group (Gen X) as well. We're not quite ready to RV (or financially able) but some of us can sell our homes and set out to do it permanently (if not seasonally). My job is within a 55+ community with retired people and I am surprised by how many people my age are Vanlifers. Almost all of them will pay for space within KOA or an RV lot though... they're not staying in the "wild".

Edited to add: Sorry, mods. I think this is off topic.
 
10ofRods said:
Well, I think there's a reason it's known as Van Life. It hasn't "always been" the thing it is now. I say this because I have worked in and for National Parks for years, visit many parks and forests, and...Van Life is affecting my own home town and the way of life here. It has not always been the way it is right now. Sure, people have lived on the road since Kerouac and Steinbeck. But it's different now.

First of all, it's a movement involving thousands of leaders (influencers and others), who have various businesses encouraging people to live on the road. In vans, not traditional RV's. The only place I'd ever seen them, until the past few years, was Yosemite. They take on active environmentalist stance, but there are real fights within this subculture about just what it means to do what they're. doing (gas, use of the outdoors as a toilet, etc). So there are different subdivisions within the culture. Entire businesses have sprung up around converting vans for Van Life. Prices of old vans are going through the roof.

Youtube made it possible for the Small House and Van Life movements to really get off the ground. Dyrt is now a thing, so that Van Lifers can find their way. into every inhabitable portion of National Forests and BLM land (sometimes illegally, it's a PITA for forest officials, it's been easier this year to just shut down forests rather than try to police the massive number of vans and tiny trailers on public lands, often without sanitary facilities.

Just in the past two months, three women are murdered while living the Van Life.

It used to be that these areas saw very few people. One could count on getting some place to throw up a tent, but no more. Volumes of visitors to national forests have tripled in the past 3 years and continue to rise. The average age of an RV user used to be around 60. Van Lifers are in their twenties. I guess soon they'll be in their 30's (although. of course, they give up the van life - but the curious thing is that there are plenty of new Van Lifers to replace them).

Anyway, Van Life is a youth movement similar to the commune-seeking, roadside-dwelling hippies of the 70's, except with vans that are, from my perspective, expensive. Yosemite has had to increase its vigilance about illegal overnight parking and change the rules for Camp Four altogether. I haven't seen so many policy changes in Yosemite since the 70's.

So from my point of view, this is a cultural form that is as distinctive as the Mod movement or the Hippy movement. It has a different history than RVing, and there's no way that there were as many Van Lifers in California 5 years ago, as there are now. My own town had to spend 2 years enacting new ordinances and finding ways to fund enforcement. Santa Monica is still spending so much money on enforcement, but at least now they too have laws against living in vans on its streets. People still do it, but it's lessened.

The number of images that come up if you search for Van Life right now, in late 2021, is astronomically larger than it was two years ago.
'
Van Life is closely associated with influencers or those who have figured out a passive income via the internet. Being able to live off Insta or Youtube is new and precarious, but people are doing it. I know one person who is doing it through Youtube and passive income (investments...guided entirely by a particular online community of which she is a part, perhaps now a leader).

As I write this, I'm once again questioning whether I should alert local LE when I know people are violating our anti-Van Life ordinances. But I know that they know (they have to, right?) but they only do something when a crime is committed in one of the hidden parking lots where the Van Lifers live. Alongside the Van Lifers are also the Bike Lifers, but they are a very small group (living in the same parking lots). And there is crime associated with these places. So now we have different kinds of homeless; the major places where the homeless camp (with their tents, grocery carts, etc) are still the same. But now we have these other homeless populations as well.

When I use the phrase "Van Life" I am referring to this movement - and not to the people who lived in their cars during the Great Depression. Indeed, living in a car is not considered Van Life by Van Lifers.
Click to expand...
I think it's the midway between camping and staying in a hotel. It did have some uptick in the 70's, and campgrounds opened up with people travelling with pop-up campers and conversion vans. We had a VW van that had all the comforts of home.
 
ivegotcha said:
Of course, but there are those that are still out there as the one I posted earlier that is totally off the grid and they proud themselves of that. I would not be surprised if this is the case for BL ... not sure if manpower is there to check these areas or not.
Click to expand...

I tried to find a website to several local off grid but they only have FB pages. The off grid IMOO, are harder to penetrate, more suspicious, protective of non locals, extreme distrust/dislike of government regulations. They all are good people , intelligent, well informed just a different life style.

Moo...
 
Sleuthypsych said:
Yes to all of that…


Does anyone know if there are any leads or suspects in the Sheridan Wahl case?

Was she an Uber driver or anything of the sorts?? Where exactly was she last seen?

What’s interesting to me is whoever killed her wanted to head west….after they got farther north.

Maybe someone who wanted to go to the AT.:confused:
Click to expand...

And perhaps the reason for the DNA request......interesting and not necessarily an impossible scenario
 
Something I've found interesting is that people here believe BL would be consistent with his expressed beliefs on SM after he killed his partner. His convictions are clearly fungible, so I don't think there's much value in talking about him having a specific diet that's incompatible with being on the run.
 
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