What was the thinking at the time when they released this statement...? "Our hearts go out to the Petito family and all who care about Gabby during this difficult time." Would have sounded too final, I suppose.
I don't know that it would have made a difference. Saying anything could have been a problem. After all, the judge did say if the L's had remained silent and had not spoken through their attorney, he would have dismissed the case.
One part of the judge's reasoning that makes no sense to me is he apparently agreed with Reilly that based on past cases, the fact that GP was dead made a difference in evaluating the outrageousness of SB's statement. But the "death cases" Reilly presented involved conduct that occurred when the family positively knew the person was dead and that's why the conduct was particularly pain-inducing and therefore outrageous. For example, in one case emotional distress was inflicted because a family was given false information about a family member's cause of death by the medical team. This was distressing in part because the family learned they had been lied to when the ME stopped the funeral. In another case cited in court and in the filings, police officers displayed photos and videos at a party that had been taken during an autopsy. The family of the deceased knew the person was dead, knew the person had been autopsied, and the family wasn't present at the party. However, people from outside the police dept were present at the party causing pain for the family.
I can understand the conduct in those two cases being deemed outrageous. I don't quite see why SB's statement falls in that category but since the judge thought it did given the claims of the P's he was mandated to temporarily assume were true (namely that the L's knew GP was dead and knew where her corpse was), I'm not sure anything said about the search would have been deemed acceptable. The P family didn't know for sure GP was dead when SB spoke, and in fact the L's may not have known either, but GP was, after all, dead.
JMO