Found Deceased WY - Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, 22, Grand Teton National Park, 25 Aug 2021 #4

[Mike in WNY]

I imagine they had a bio friendly water container. He doesn't like plastic or glass. Maybe stainless steel.

Could be... like a Berkey - which is certainly a van-life preference - but most are rather costly ... even the mid-size ~3 gallons IIRC runs somewhere in the $500 range. A lot of money to spend for a couple that is obviously on a tight "budget". But, yeah, it's a possibility.

 

[Deleted member 121463]

There is absolutely no evidence besides speculation that Gabby was in an incredibly abusive relationship where she was meek and quiet and weak and BL was all powerful and manipulating and controlling her. even family members on both sides attest to their relationship not showing signs of abuse or trouble.

she bought the van. She decorated it. She chose to start blogging. She chose to go on this trip. She admitted to assaulting him. She admitted to having OCD and anxiety. She admitted all of this. None of that is an assumption. Everything else is PURE conjecture. She also complains about his behaviors in the police video. She doesn’t take 100% of the blame. She talks about how he doesn’t support her and gets frustrated with her anxiety and OCD. Admitting you are struggling is NOT a sign of abuse. I don’t get why people think it is.

getting sad seeing the assumption that women are perpetual victims. We are not. GP was struggling but she was also badas* She’s an adventurer and a hiker and does things far from home. That’s bravery. Give her some credit. I hope she’s found and brought home. She deserves that.




really? Sounds like you are making excuses. There is no proof she was fighting back. She admitted to punching him in the arm while he was driving. Wouldn’t she have marks on her face if he was driving and hitting her and she punched him as defense? This is a slippery slope. Physical abuse is physical abuse, period. It’s NEVER ok. Women can abuse men and men often don’t report it or talk about it because of comments like this. Sounds more like they were both toxic and harmful to one another.

He's still breathing. She likely isn't.

 

[MsBetsy]

No one should us violence period. No one is saying she should have done anything differently. Merely pointing out that had the cops intervened it might have saved her life. Clearly the toxic relationship reached its boiling point. Please do not



if you go back and watch where the police are talking amongst themselves- they asked her that question as a way to not have to actually charge her with DV… you could see these officers were very “gracious” in this scenario…. They had the right to charge and arrest her for DV. She admitted it, he admitted it, two witnesses back up the same stories they (GP &BL) gave. The police made a call- was it the right one? Well in hindsight , probably not. If they did cite GP for the DV, maybe just maybe she could still be alive. But as you said, they kept diminishing the situation and tried everything in their power to not charge her. Obviously they could not have known what was going to happen a few weeks later. I also think that even if they did cite her, bL would be in the next day to drop the protective order and then be able to contact her and they would be back on the road only now she has a criminal case against her. bL did not even want to press charges but some crimes don’t need the victim cooperation and the state will charge the person regardless. Idk jmo!

Yes, I know. I was replying to the OP that stated LE should have arrested her and everybody would have been better off.

 

[scapa]

Just as a general statement, but IMO there is simply nowhere near enough information to make any sort of psychiatrist and/or psychological diagnosis or assessment from that bodycam footage. It's two adults who are in a high stress situation. I know there are many people here with only the best intentions, sharing matrices and criteria for abusive relationships, and mental illness diagnostic criteria, etc, but the truth of the matter is, human beings are complex, and it requires far more than watching some bodycam footage of a traffic stop for an hour to make a solid assessment of any individual. Without digressing too far, I believe that the medicalization and overly-pathologized notion of human beings is on display when people do this sort of thing. To be fair, yes, of course we want to try to make sense of the situation. But you cannot say you have a solid assessment from such limited evidence. This is also true even in real world psychiatry. There are so many 'doctors' who will see a patient for 10 minutes and immediately diagnose them with some issue or some condition and write them medications. IMO and from my own personal anecdotal stories, the best don't actually analyze or jump to conclusions..it takes time. It takes patience. You must gather enough information to make an accurate assessment, and, if appropriate, diagnosis. Again - not discrediting anyone for suggesting abuse or mental issues here in the video, but it's just simply not enough information to do so accurately. MOO

Thanks for this. I do think it's worthwhile noting that extrapolating an opinion (not a diagnosis) from one's own experiences and/or research is common and reasonable, but what we have in terms of data here is one video and some snippets from GP's parents -- that's a small diagnostic window.

That snippet (the video) is deeply disturbing and clearly triggering. BL's aggressively defensive posture has clearly added to a fraught situation, and there's all kinds of reasons to be suspicious of his actions and motives, and deeply concerned about possible outcomes, but I guess I'm always a bit wary of diagnosing from afar, and while the why, how and who are already important in this case (and will likely become more so), it seems that GB's family are much more focused on the WHAT at this stage, as they keep noting in their public advocacy for her:

- What happened to Gabby?
- Where is she?
- When and how can we bring her home?

When I'm on rounds I sometimes find myself reminding my students that a diagnosis is not a guess -- they need to look for and then carefully evaluate a specific patient history and test data, then look for precedent, then gauge response in order to firm up that diagnosis and establish a workable ongoing treatment plan. It's hard but crucial work.

I am genuinely worried about GB -- and not particularly interested in BL, except insofar as he can help with her return or (hopefully not) recovery -- as her family reminds us. They seem very, very clear that any and all investigative attention, at this point, must be focused on her.

 

[PIUK]

Moonflower. The same store where Kylen Schulte worked.

Thinking out loud. Was Kylen working or there? Maybe B assumed they called the police?
Please delete if not allowed.

 

[LietKynes]

I was also wanting to say from the video link in my other post and also above (thanks, @bradfordsleuth !) :

What stood out to me was his demeanor in the bodycam footage.
They'd just had a fight !
He was scratched.
She was having a difficult time articulating through sobs.

He was pleasant, calm, helpful to LE.

Gave me chills !

He's not so helpful now, is he ?
MOO.

 

[BuckeyeGal]

The reporter in the press conference who kept asking how the situation was affecting them "emotionally"...

Whenever I see press asking that type of question, I always want to yell at the tv and say "How do you THINK It is affecting them"?

 

[OldCop]

You're correct.
In this case, sadly.
I wish there was something else they could hold him on , just to talk to him ?
If this drags on -- is it possible that if LE find something to charge him with , will they offer a plea deal in exchange for her remains ?
I don't even know if she's gone from this earth.

I will happily eat crow if she's just with other people for inexplicable reasons.
But it seems like she kept in touch with her family very consistently.
That alone makes me think something bad happened.
Imo.

I’m very afraid you are right, @LietKynes. So sad and so very frustrating. I think LE is working very hard to get at least one thing they can bring him in on. Of course, even then he still doesn’t have to talk.
As far as a plea deal, he won’t go for it unless he thinks they have something that will put him away for life. Prior to charges, he may ask for immunity if he gives them info, but I can’t see the prosecutor offering that at this point. MOO

 

[Deleted member 121463]

I was also wanting to say from the video link in my other post and also above (thanks, @bradfordsleuth !) :

What stood out to me was his demeanor in the bodycam footage.
They'd just had a fight !
He was scratched.
She was having a difficult time articulating through sobs.

He was pleasant, calm, helpful to LE.

Gave me chills !

He's not so helpful now, is he ?
MOO.

100 percent true.

 

[citizen_sleuth]

Thinking out loud. Was Kylen working or there? Maybe B assumed they called the police?
Please delete if not allowed.

I was wondering the same thing, mainly because in the body cam footage the officer states there were two witnesses to the incident, but the only one identified was Christopher. I would like to know who the other witness was and whether they also called police to report it.

 

[Mayjunejuly]

They did t go on their merry way
Brian was sent to a hotel. She got the van
I think the next day they had to.go.the court house!

I just wanted to correct you on the “going to the courthouse”… actually that’s not what happened. At first it seemed like the cops were going to follow through and charge her with DV… but as the video goes on, they discussed it and decided they legally could go either way with it, but chose to not cite her and only separate them. GP took the van, BL went to the hotel. They might have even ended up back together that night in all honesty because legally they could, since they did not actually charge GP there was not a NC order in place, so BL did not have to follow through with ending the protective order and GP did not get a court date out of it. They basically separated them and gave them a warning.

 

[JuneRose]

i would be so upset if i started a cross country road trip and my traveling partner decided to start a blog and document everything. I would hate it. Does that make me suspicious?

i think that was the whole reason for he trip, was to help get her blog going, it wasnt a surprise.

 

[carbuff]

Per the police video, they were at the organic grocery store from 9am to 3pm that day so she could work on the travel blog. I assume the store had wifi. The domestic incident occurred as they were leaving as the police report says shortly after 4pm. BL reports they were going to get showers and bulk water somewhere.

This is the Moonflower, if anybody wants to see what it looks like: Moonflower Community Co-op in Moab, Utah - Moonflower Community Cooperative

This particular incarnation of the co-op is only a few years old, but the Moab co-op in various forms has been around since the 1970's. Pretty sure we got sandwiches there on our trip through the area back around 1990-ish.

 

[pittie_mcclure]

He's still breathing. She likely isn't.

I really hope she is still breathing. I really do. I’ve stated in previous posts his moral obligation to help find her is real and he’s garbage if he left her and didn’t look back, period, but all the conjecture that he’s incredibly abusive and she’s just scared even though the police video literally states she laid hands on him and has been struggling with mental health shows the opposite.

everything seems so black and white here. GP can be abusive towards BL and be struggling with her mental health AND not deserve to be a victim of a crime. Nobody deserves to be a victim. It can all exist together. They were most likely toxic for one another and shouldn’t have been together.

 

[whitelilac]

Unless you are familiar with behavioral patterns as they relate to emotional and mental abuse they can be hard to spot.

I didn't start with the presupposition that BL was an abuser. In fact, I went back and forth through out the video and listened carefully watching for patterns of behavior. One pattern that stood out to me was GP's repeated insistence that she was the problem. A classic victim response called "fawning". Take all the accountability. You're unstable. You're the problem. It's the human equivalent of rolling over and playing dead hoping you won't be harmed further.

Couple that with Brian's pattern of denying, accusing and reversing victim and offender (called DARVO) it's a classic mental/emotional abuse cycle. There's other things that show the cycle as well (including Gabby's high emotional state and near hysterics being fight or flight). For what it's worth I also tried to see patterns in reverse and they just weren't there. Someone posted the abuse wheel, might be worth taking a look at.

This.
It makes me wonder whether Gabby's "really bad OCD" has always been present, or whether this developed during the road trip. Granted, living in such close quarters can exacerbate a hidden or mild condition.
But it seemed to me in the video that her repeated expressions of being at fault may have been a conditioning on the part of BL. In contrast I was also a bit disturbed by BL's chumminess with the cops, the smiling, and the lack of concern or sympathy towards Gabby's obvious distress. Very hard to watch.

 

[10ofRods]

"... going to get ... bulk water...". Which is kinda ironic since I'm betting it came in or was held in a plastic container of some sort.

But hopefully an indefinitely reusable one, such as what one sees people fill up in campgrounds. The ones we have, well, they have lasted 20 years.

They apparently had reservations in Arches that night. That would be the place to fill up with water.

What I want to know is whether Gabby ended up camping alone in Arches that night (the 12th). Or did she end up going and getting him from the hotel? They did head on to SLC at some point - I don't see any of her usual insta photos at Arches, so I wonder what shape the relationship was in at that point. Presumably, they drove back through Arches after he got out of the hotel, so that they could see it.

She surely spent many hours that day (12th) working on the video blog - and all we have so far is the front page. I feel as if he was really pressuring her about the vlog, in any case. She has such good design sense, and I'm sure she needed to concentrate and focus.

 

[TheTruthWillOut]

Ironic BL ends up at a hotel ~100 yards from the Moonflower Co-Op. Also so many aspects of the body cam footage was quite bizarre. I can't quite put my finger on exactly why and know LE is done differently than here in England but aspects of it felt so off I can't explain it in words (and I mean all parties actions here).

 

[thebedbug]

Let's keep in mind that this was on Aug. 12th and we are certain GP was alive, at least, 12 days later.

It's window into their situation, but I think a lot went on between then and her disappearance.

 

[Jurisprudence]

We know that LE has information that is not being released to the public to preserve the integrity of the investigation. This is standard. We know this because we know at minimum they have a starting point. The last face time call with her mother is detailed down to the second from the time and date it was placed, to how long it lasted, to its end. The mother knows if she was already in Wyoming or simply getting ready to depart (I think it's the latter). We also know they were separated.

From all public facing information this is their encounter with the police was the biggest incident they faced on this trip. It seems a stretch that while separated and alone for the night, each on reflecting how horribly wrong that whole day had been, that neither reached out that night to a family or friend. I have faith that LE including FBI have info.

 

[JudgeJoe]

Has anyone noticed, that all this time, we've never found out his exact age? I recall in the beginning when the story first broke, it was stated that he was between 23 and 30. I remember it, becuase it seemed odd; her age was given as 22, but his was given as a fairly broad approximate range. If I've missed an update, please fill me in. But if there's a significant age difference between them, this could be conducive to him playing the older, smarter authority figure, perhaps sometimes talking down to her. She might have looked up to him, until the relationship hit rocky patches.

We also don't know what her mother's statement, that they had a relationship in highschool, means exactly. Was she a freshman when he was a senior? We she a HS student though he was out of HS already, and they first met each other outside of the school context?

It would be nice to have more basic background info, so we don't have to guess.

I also feel, that her statement to Moab police, "I feel like I'm OCD" is very different from a confession that she's diagnosed as OCD "but unmedicated", as BL said. Why should she be medicated, if there's been no diagnosis? What did he say his mental health condition was, that he was also unmedicated for? If he's truly been diagnosed with something, maybe he's been trying to project onto her, that she has a condition, too, and has been trying to get her to believe it.

"Feeling like" you're OCD is very different from knowing you have OCD, because your doctor evaluated you. And yet, this went down in the police report as both of them having a mental health condition they don't take meds for.

Maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling of some sloppy police work happening here. it's good that the officer told them to separate until the next day to cool off, and didn't book Gabby for assault. But I have an uneasy feeling, that they were inattentive to other details, not really methodical in checking out facts (like car ownership), the basis of the altercation (he refused to give her the keys to her car, behaving as though he were going to abandon her), and recording a casual statement about "feeling like OCD" as if it were a diagnosed condition.

OCD is an over-used & misused term to describe people who like things neat & tidy with i’s dotted & t’s crossed. The official psych diagnosis is something else entirely. I don’t think GB was really OCD. I think she was particular about the van & tent being picture-perfect for her Instagram pics & vids. Pretty gets followers, messy & sloppy does not. Guessing BL got tired of folding his shorts & picking up his socks on vacation while re-plumping & re-fluffing pillows to keep things van beautiful. They had very different goals for this trip imo. Jmo. In this case the incompatibility became tragic. Imo.