Tragic death of Gabby Petito

[dowie]

Don't know if anyone has followed this case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gabby_Petito

tl;dr

• A youtube/van life couple goes on a trip in thier van (or rather the gf's van AFAIK, the bf is unemployed).

• At some point there is a domestic incident where the police are called, the gf is seemingly the aggressor in this incident and the bf the victim - police chalk it up as a mental health thing and separate the couple for the night, bf sent to a motel.

• BF turns up at home, in van, no gf with him. He's not talking to anyone about it*. GF is now a missing person but no evidence of a crime so nothing anyone can do about the bf.

• Days later he body is discovered but... the BF has now dissapeared. Some obvious questions about his parent's complicity here too.

Obviously, a case like this got a shed load of media attention in the US, so enter the culture war narrative - muh pretty white woman, wot about all the missing black/indigenous etc.. etc.. This is a tad hypocritical when it is coming from the media outlets/media personalities that have themselves chosen not to report on those other stories.

But now to top things off, it seems Dog the Bounty hunter is on the case... he's playing at being a police officer again and trying to find the suspect himself:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1441859583337771008

Some people might recall and/or see in the comments of that thread that he's done this sort of thing before too, once he went to Mexico (and got arrested for kidnapping) in the process of capturing a seireal rapist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Luster

*

Spoiler

I guess this is also a good illustration of how not talking to the police can be very effective if you'#re a suspect or person of interest:

 

[dowie]

In either situation, they can end up in a panic and just run away, must get away from what they've done, no thinking being done. Maybe they hide the body very badly because what they're really doing it hiding it from themself. Or maybe they're ignorant and/or stupid as well as vicious.[...]
Or maybe in this case she attacked him, he accidentally killed her while defending himself and panicked. Or maybe he'd already left her because she'd attacked him and someone else killed her later. Or maybe he's another ignorant and/or stupid murderer. What is known? Is it even known her death was homicide rather than suicide or accident? The wiki link refers only to a preliminary finding.

I think it seems quite likely at this point that he killed her, it seemed pretty likely before he went missing too, back when the police wanted to talk to him but he simply refused to say anything to them.

He was smart enough to not talk to the police, plenty of criminals fail that basic step.

It does seem quite likely, given we already know about one "domestic" incident that this might well have been something that happened in the middle of another fight rather than a planned murder or something along those lines. Who attacked first is something we'll probably never know unless we get a full confession from this guy (which given he's already not talked to the police and is now on the run seems unlikely).

I guess he'll probably get caught soon and will presumably claim self-defence if charged with murder, could be quite hard to prosecute for the higher murder charges if it is someone who will lawyer up, hasn't spoken to police and pleads self-defence - it seems like he's currently still not officially wanted for murder (though obviously, authorities would be very very keen to talk to him about that) but rather for credit card fraud - presumably, her credit card was used after the time/date they know she was likely dead.

On the other hand, it's now the feds looking at it too and that's bad news for him + the media coverage no doubt means plenty more resources thrown at it now. There will no doubt be plenty more outrage to come with this case, especially if, given the circumstances, a prior domestic incident where he was the apparent "victim" lack of witnesses etc.. he's able to end up with say manslaughter or 3rd-degree murder and/or the sentencing is too soft. No doubt more culture war stuff about privilege etc.. In fact you can almost guarantee that if the police are able to arrest him in a normal manner (i.e. he complies with basic verbal instructions and they don't need to use force to put him in cuffs) you'll see some more outrage, bonus points if they buy him a burger or something because he's not had anything to eat recently...

 

[dowie]

OP starts an (admittedly) not stellar thread (poor thread title by dowie's incredible standards)

Sorry to disappoint, though probs a bit too inappropriate to make a joke with this one.

I am still disappointed that my "Prince Andrew, apparently not a nonce" thread (or some title along those lines) got vanished for being distasteful speculation or something etc.. it was clearly years ahead of its time!

 

[dowie]

Help me out here - I can't find any info on him being charged with her death let alone convicted at this point... Guessing my google-fu skills are letting me down

A bit difficult to convict him over the killing if he's dead tbh...

 

[dowie]

Very true but bear in mind that he hadn't even reached the threshold to be charged yet either which, had he been alive, puts him even further from a conviction.

Well of course he hadn't, there was no evidence of any crime before he disappeared. They hadn't even found the body... Not really sure what your point is here tbh..

Had there been sufficient evidence then the arrest warrant would be raised to include murder, not simply a comparably minor crime of card fraud.

Nope, not necessarily, the fact that he fled by the time the body was found, time of death established and card fraud was discovered is relevant here too. Do you think they'd usually dedicate so many resources to finding someone they merely suspected of card fraud?

We might never know for sure whether it was murder or manslaughter but it's pretty damn obvious he killed her, illegally, and ran away as a result.

Well ackchually he wasn't charged seems like an irrelevant point to raise given it ignores some of the basic facts.

 

[dowie]

Guys that subway incident is a totally different case, I'm not really sure what the link is here? Would you mind using another thread please as there is probably still more to come out re: the subject of this thread.