BBM. You raise some good points! iirc, Gabby phoned her mom while Moab LE was still at the scene. Bertolino also mentions in his depo that Gabby spent 45 minutes talking to her dad about the possibility of her arrest while in Moab so both her parents knew about the incident.I agree that they might have suspected that gone meant dead, but what parent is going to want to jump to that conclusion? They're going to want to hold out hope as long as is humanly possible. And, that's on both sides.
I think the Laundries would have been in the wrong to suggest to the Petitos that their child was dead when they didn't know for sure. And, what would they say? We think our child killed your child?
From what I remember, both sets of parents said that they did not see any abusive problems in the kids' relationship, so going from there to murder would be quite the shark leap. For both.
Realistically, I think the Moab phone call w/mom might have been the first inkling of abuse, but even then, I'm not sure what Gabby told her mother that day. She might not have mentioned the slapping and pushing. In a way, I kind of think Gabby played that down on the phone call because otherwise, her mother probably would have demanded she return home, or her mother probably would have called the police herself and told them her daughter had been abused.
Everyone wishes the outcome had been different--that the kids just split up and go their own ways. We'd still have both likely on this earth.
But, that didn't happen and at the end of the day -- to me -- only Brian is the bad guy here. He cheated the Petitos out of getting justice, but I think his parents are victims, too.
I just feel bad for all of them, but it could be over very soon. Once it is, perhaps the grieving process can truly start and both families can move on.
It was BL's parents who didn't know about Moab. A point Bertolino raised was why didn't her parents call his parents and discuss Moab?
JMO
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