The family’s attorneys have revealed a photo of murdered blogger Gabby Petito, showing that she had cuts, bruises, and smeared blood on her face.
Legal representatives claim the photo was shot in the seconds before she and fiance Brian Laundrie were detained by police in Utah in August 2021 in connection with a domestic disturbance incident.
She was missing for weeks before her body was discovered at a Wyoming campsite. Subsequently, Mr. Laundrie took his own life with a gun.
They are suing the state of Utah for their carelessness.
Her family’s attorneys disclosed the photo on Monday; it had been referenced in a lawsuit against the Moab City Police Department that was filed in November.
The family claims the police department has been careless in its hiring and training of officers. They also claim the police officers who dealt with the domestic violence allegation were negligent.
Moab released a statement rejecting any culpability for Ms. Petito’s death and promising to fight the case.
In the summer of 2021, Ms. Petito, then 22, and Mr. Laundrie, then 23, took a vehicle and travelled across the nation. Ms. Petito shared several photographs from her scenic road trip on social media. Yet, at some time, everything went horribly wrong.
In September, not long after Ms. Petito’s worried picture was shot, her family reported her missing.
Source: Independent
Blogger Gabby Petito’s alleged killer is her boyfriend.
According to a witness who phoned the police on 12 August 2021, the pair was in a grocery shop in Moab, Utah, when Mr. Laundrie struck Ms. Petito and tried to steal her phone, leaving her abandoned outside.
Later, authorities from the Moab City Police Department ran into the pair and questioned them for about an hour. Ms. Petito was seen sobbing and complaining to police about her mental health on body camera footage. She said that there has been an increase in the couple’s fights.
Mr. Laundrie reported that Ms. Petito struck him during an altercation, according to the police report. Rather than press charges, the police suggested they spend the night apart.
When Ms. Petito told police in Moab about her wounds, they reportedly “did nothing further to investigate or document the injury,” as her attorneys put it.
On September 19th, Ms. Petito’s body was located in a campsite close to Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming. The medical examiner determined that her murder.
Mr. Laundrie’s body, which had a gunshot wound to the head, was discovered on October 20 in a Florida nature preserve not far from his parents’ house.
