Solved The Murder of Gabby Petito

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I think his family knew and it was actually cruel of them not to communicate to her family. Maybe if they had spoken up their son would be alive today. But maybe they suspected or knew that he was going to kill himself and thought that was better then gaol for him. I can't imagine they would be okay with him killing himself but I also don't know how they could have not reached out to Gabby's family in real way. No happy ending can ever come for Gabby's family but the truth has to be worth something.

 

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OMG He talk about the murder as though he were putting a pet to sleep. I had to just stop when I read that. "I ended her life", "took away her pain", "I thought it was merciful" - It was Murder! He didn't own her and didn't have the right.
Taking away her pain, means he should have done himself first.
 
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I think his family knew and it was actually cruel of them not to communicate to her family. Maybe if they had spoken up their son would be alive today. But maybe they suspected or knew that he was going to kill himself and thought that was better then gaol for him. I can't imagine they would be okay with him killing himself but I also don't know how they could have not reached out to Gabby's family in real way. No happy ending can ever come for Gabby's family but the truth has to be worth something.


It is an extremely painful path sometimes to place you and your family in personal jeopardy to uphold ideals. There is always right and wrong in my opinion. We each know that line. That knowledge is what distinguishes humanity. It can cut so very deeply. But the choice to instead follow a lower path to avoid that cut diminishes the soul and becomes, in the long run, the more severe price to pay
 
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It is an extremely painful path sometimes to place you and your family in personal jeopardy to uphold ideals. There is always right and wrong in my opinion. We each know that line. That knowledge is what distinguishes humanity. It can cut so very deeply. But the choice to instead follow a lower path to avoid that cut diminishes the soul and becomes, in the long run, the more severe price to pay
Well said and I couldn't agree more. We can never know how we might respond in such situations and we can only hope that we are not put to that test. I could think and talk about this for hours but I think you have gotten to the heart of it. I don't believe I could just turn my back on onthers in need though.
 
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So is he trying to say there was an accident and then he put her down?
Did the autopsy ever reveal the cause of death?
The autopsy gave strangulation as the cause of death. The coroner (in his presser) indicated that the strangulation was by throttling (it's a pretty old-fashioned kind of term to hear used these days) which meant that the strangulation wasn't due to say, a rope, but was by human hand. Although her body had been out in the elements and exposed to wildlife, the way that the hyoid bone had been broken provided that detail.
Honestly, the guy's letter was a complete whitewash. He would have known how close to the road they were. If there were an accident, help wasn't that far, and if she was calling for anything to stop - it was for him to stop abusing her, not begging him to end her pain and kill her. He must have known that no matter how he tried to twist the truth there was no way he could get away with her murder. In a way he was actually blaming her for her own death in that letter. So very twisted.
 

Macca180

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So is he trying to say there was an accident and then he put her down?
Did the autopsy ever reveal the cause of death?

Yeah reading that diary entry it seems like he is saying there was an accident...like they had a fight and she ran off and either fell and knocked herself out or some bs like that or she was exposed to the elements for too long and got very sick or started dying and it he put her to sleep.

Either way we will never know if it is true or some truth to it. Only thing we know is he ended it.
 
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Yeah reading that diary entry it seems like he is saying there was an accident...like they had a fight and she ran off and either fell and knocked herself out or some bs like that or she was exposed to the elements for too long and got very sick or started dying and it he put her to sleep.

Either way we will never know if it is true or some truth to it. Only thing we know is he ended it.


If you are in a situation like that you do everything in your power to save life. The responsibility falls on your shoulder. You don't end life. He wants to rewrite history so that he may be exonerated.

I never forget the account of that 1996 Everest disaster..Rob Hall stayed with Doug Hansen at the top because DH couldn't make it any further down. In the end he sacrificed his own life as well. We will never know if he had that chance because he took the risk to stay and help knowing it may prove fatal. A brave and honourable choice.
 

SquiffyRae

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Classic narcissist just trying to spin the narrative.

Sounds like they'd been having some troubles in the relationship. One night it reaches a head and Gabby is so done she demands to be taken home immediately. Like a lot of abusers, Laundrie snaps when he realises he's gonna lose control of his victim and murders her. In his head he knows he's screwed and he's really only got one option left to him.

So he writes those diary entries to try and set the narrative. That there's been some sort of accident and that he did the "merciful" thing and "ended her suffering." The armchair psych in me also wonders if in his own mind that's code for him saying "not being with me, the greatest stud ever to live, is the worst thing in the world so by killing her I prevented her making a big mistake." Anyway, he's painting this narrative as the victim in the situation, not the perpetrator. He's trying to spin the narrative that he's a victim of circumstance and had this incredibly traumatic thing happen to him rather than the truth he's a violent murderer.

That way when his body is found, he's the grieving boyfriend who couldn't live with what happened and what he had to do and killed himself rather than the coward who murdered someone and killed himself to escape the consequences. And because he avoids a trial, he avoids the people he cares about most from witnessing his spin be picked apart by experts. He doesn't give a toss what the media says about him, as long as he can spin a narrative that his close family and friends might believe because the alternative is admitting your son/brother/friend etc. is a murderer
 

zedx

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Classic narcissist just trying to spin the narrative.

Sounds like they'd been having some troubles in the relationship. One night it reaches a head and Gabby is so done she demands to be taken home immediately. Like a lot of abusers, Laundrie snaps when he realises he's gonna lose control of his victim and murders her. In his head he knows he's screwed and he's really only got one option left to him.

So he writes those diary entries to try and set the narrative. That there's been some sort of accident and that he did the "merciful" thing and "ended her suffering." The armchair psych in me also wonders if in his own mind that's code for him saying "not being with me, the greatest stud ever to live, is the worst thing in the world so by killing her I prevented her making a big mistake." Anyway, he's painting this narrative as the victim in the situation, not the perpetrator. He's trying to spin the narrative that he's a victim of circumstance and had this incredibly traumatic thing happen to him rather than the truth he's a violent murderer.

That way when his body is found, he's the grieving boyfriend who couldn't live with what happened and what he had to do and killed himself rather than the coward who murdered someone and killed himself to escape the consequences. And because he avoids a trial, he avoids the people he cares about most from witnessing his spin be picked apart by experts. He doesn't give a toss what the media says about him, as long as he can spin a narrative that his close family and friends might believe because the alternative is admitting your son/brother/friend etc. is a murderer
Agree- it came across to me as something a perpetrator of DV would say/reason.
 
  • Nichole Schmidt called Laundrie's purported confession that he killed Petito as an act of mercy after she grievously injured herself an 'absolute' lie
  • 'That was his character even in his last moments he wanted to make sure he looked like the good guy,' she said, 'That's ridiculous. We know how she died'
  • She said the confession story he wrote in his notebook was merely a part of the 'good guy' character he always masqueraded as
 
This might help to drive the education in DV dynamics and coercive control. I can see a lot of people jumping out to say that Gabby told the police when they were pulled over that she hit Laundrie but that could be as a result of coercive control/reactive abuse. Also if she did, her 'hits' are baby slaps. His have the potential to kill.
 
I can’t really see that this is the police’s fault.

At the time Gabby and Laundrie were pulled over which was in response to a witness reporting Laundrie hitting her, they had another witness account to him hitting her in a restaurant.

The Petito's won't get $50m but a court case will keep this in the public eye, raise awareness and hopefully be the driver behind more education.
 
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At the time Gabby and Laundrie were pulled over which was in response to a witness reporting Laundrie hitting her, they had another witness account to him hitting her in a restaurant.

The Petito's won't get $50m but a court case will keep this in the public eye, raise awareness and hopefully be the driver behind more education.
They spent hrs with them, it’s all on video, didn’t they separate them that night?
I’m not sure what else they’re supposed to do, given the testimonies they were given at the time by each of them separated.
 

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The van life couple who uploaded a video of Gabby Petito’s van on YouTube says “the amazing community of social media came together and found Gabby.”
More on “48 Hours,” tonight at 9/8c.
 
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