The tragic murder of Gabby Petito by her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, continues to captivate the nation. The country has followed the story since family members reported Gabby missing in September 2021.
The sad story slowly unfolded as officers found Gabby’s body in Wyoming on Oct. 20, 2021. Authorities initiated a nationwide search for Laundrie and discovered his body in a Florida swamp months later. In recent weeks, Gabby’s family members claimed that Utah police stopped but did not hold Laundrie just days before the murder.
RTM previously reported that Utah Police Offers stopped the vehicle Laundrie was driving on Aug. 12, 2021, after a witness reported seeing a man — later identified as Laundrie — hitting Petito and attempting to take her phone. Laundrie and Petito were reportedly on a cross-country travel-blogging trip.
Gabby was in the vehicle, and photos taken during the stop show she had bruises and blood on her face. Officers questioned Laundrie and Petito and then let them go. Laundrie killed Gabby weeks later.
According to a Fox News report, lawyers for the Petito family argue that officers should have detained Laundrie, noting they have evidence that police viewed Brian Laundrie as an “emotional and mental threat to Gabby.”
On Wednesday, attorneys representing Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt presented the new evidence in a court filing. Reportedly, the filing includes transcripts of discussions between one of the Moab police officers who questioned Laundrie and Price Police Dept. Captain Brandon Ratcliffe who conducted an independent review of the incident.
The Petito family contends that officers did not properly handle the encounter with Laundrie and that negligence contributed to Gabby’s death. Specifically, family members claim that officers failed to implement a “lethality assessment protocol” that was established in 2018 to protect domestic violence victims from their abusers.
Ratcliffe faulted officers for not viewing Laundrie as a potential suspect though a 911 call noted that Laundry was hitting Petito. According to the filing, the officer did not believe Laundrie’s contention that Petito was the aggressor and perpetrated an assault on him.
The officer reportedly said: “I took my 16 years of experience and said I believed Gabby, based on the totality of circumstances and based on what she appears physically capable of and based off what I saw him doing and acting the way he was acting, I don’t think she assaulted him.”
Nevertheless, officers took no action to detain Laundrie per proper protocol.
Pratt reportedly told Ratcliffe that Laundrie was “a weird, not healthy dude and showed “more red flags than a Chinese communist rally” and “looked unsavory.”
Pratt added, “I thought he was an emotional threat to her,” he allegedly said, according to the complaint. “I thought he was a mental threat to her.”
Attorneys for the Petito family have filed a $50,000,000 suit.
The new evidence appears to bolster the Petito family’s lawsuit against the City of Moab and the Moab Police Dept.
The report can be viewed HERE.
An initial investigation coordinated by Captain Brandon Ratcliffe of the Price Police Dept. noted that officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins did not follow proper protocol. Ratcliffe faulted the officers for “unintentional mistakes” and issued disciplinary and training recommendations.
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