It has now been confirmed that the dead woman who was found near the border of the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on Sunday, is Instagram adventurer Gabby Petito (22). The police have now started a criminal investigation of the case.
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That confirms the autopsy of her, the lawyer for her family says Insider Tuesday.
The cause of death is not yet known, and the result has not been published by the FBI or the autopsy office in Teton. Petito was reported missing on September 11.
Police in North Port, Florida, where Petito and his fiancée Brian Laundrie lived with his parents, have previously confirmed that it was Petito who was found dead.
Earlier Tuesday, Florida police announced that the case now has the status of a forensic investigation.
And just hours later, the FBI reports that the preliminary autopsy report indicates that the cause of death is homicide.
–On Monday, the FBI searched the house where they lived and questioned the fiancé’s parents.
Laundrie is currently missing and large resources have tried to find him, without success.
In early September, he returned home alone to Florida after he and Petito had been on a long road trip in the United States, which they documented for their hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram.
The last sign of life from Petito was on August 30, when her family received a suspicious message from her phone number: “No coverage in Yosmite.”
Yosemite is a California national park located 130 miles southeast of Teton, where she was found dead. Her family believes that it was not Petito who sent the last message to them.
Crying in released video
On Friday, the police released a video from the body camera of an officer. It shows that on August 12, the couple was stopped by police in the state of Utah. The police had received a report from a witness about a possible episode of domestic violence in the car.
In the car, Petito cried uncontrollably, but the police were informed that he had not beaten her. Both are said to have told the police that they were “in love, engaged and did not want to see anyone charged with anything criminal”.
At the same time, Brian Laundrie is said to have told the police that it was emotionally stressful for the couple to have traveled together for so long. At that time, they had been traveling for four to five months.
Police in Moab, Utah, where the incident took place, concluded that it probably had not escalated to violence in close relationships, reported Reuters.
Now the police have also released an emergency call that came in before the disappearance of Petito:
The most important dates in the case
This is what we know about the couple’s road trip:
- July: Petito and Laundrie travel on a road trip from her hometown of Long Island, New York. By then, they had first driven up there from Florida. According to the BBC the trip was to last for four months.
- 12. august: The couple is stopped by police in the city of Moab in the state of Utah. A witness had reported that they had seen something that was a possible incident of violence in the car. The couple tells police that they have been arguing, but that no one has been violent.
- 24. august: Petito talks to his mother on video chat. She says they travel on from Utah to Teton, Wyoming.
- 25. august: Petito shares her latest post on Instagram: “Happy Halloween”, she writes, while posing with a pumpkin.
- 27. august: Petito and his mother send text messages to each other. The family thinks she was in Teton.
- 30. august: The family receives a recent message from Gabby Petito’s phone number: “No coverage in Yosmite”, which is the name of a national park in California – 130 miles south-east of Teton, where she is said to have been found dead. The Petito family does not think it was Gabby who sent this message.
- 1. september: Brian Laundrie comes home to North Port, Florida in the couple’s RV.
- 11. september: Petito’s family in New York reports her missing, since they do not get in touch with her.
- 14. september: Laundrie’s family says this is the last time they see him. Now he is also missing.
- 19. september: A dead person is found in Teton, Wyoming. The FBI says the finding is consistent with Petito, but that they can not give a 100 percent confirmation until the autopsy is completed.
- 20. september: Police are searching the Laundrie family’s home in North Port.
- September 21: The Petito family’s lawyer confirms that it is Gabby Petito who was found dead in Teton, Wyoming.
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