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Bad Romance: The Gabby Petito Story: Vanishing Point
Tue, 27 May 2025 07:00:00 -0000
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Who was Gabby Petito and what was her story?
He just shut up. How many times did you slap him? Just a couple. He got really frustrated with me, and he walked out of the car and told me to go take a breather, but I didn't want to take a breather. She had his cell phone in her hand. That's why I was pushing her away. I said, let's just take a breather, and let's not go anywhere.
Let's just calm down for a minute. We'll see if she got me with her phone. According to both Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, it was Gabby and not Brian who was the initial aggressor.
There are relationships in which women are aggressively violent toward men. That is possible. But in the vast majority of domestic violence situations, the men are the aggressors. And the women in public, when questioned about it, especially by law enforcement, will often take responsibility for it out of fear that the aggressor, the man, in their relationship, will be more angry if they don't.
While Brian is speaking to police, an anxious Gabby is in the back seat of that police car. And she says, can I have my phone so I can call my mom? Then I didn't get that phone call. Because maybe at that moment, maybe she would have told me what was going on. While Gabby did not speak to Nicole during the stop, she did speak to her dad, Joe. She called me during the traffic stop.
What did she say? It was her fault. And that was, we told her, it's fine. I'm going to be on the next plane to come get you. And she's like, no, no, no. It's my fault. We didn't have the information. We didn't have all the other information. That she was being slapped and all this other stuff prior. We didn't have any of that information. Now, police on the scene have a decision to make.
Now, the problem with her being the primary aggressor is in an instance of domestic assault, be it a male or be it a female, we shall arrest. She appeared to be the aggressor, and she said she was the aggressor. Now, do I believe that? No. But the police can only go on the evidence they are given.
What I saw was a bunch of police officers trying to sort this out, and they appeared to be compassionate towards both parties. Normally, we take people to jail, but he's trying to work it so you can just have the van. No, we're a team, please. There's no us? What is it? No, like, we're a team, please. It's going to give me so much anxiety. Can we just have, like, a driving ticket?
Under Utah law, if Gabby hit Brian in order to cause him harm or pain, they have to arrest her. When you slapped him those times, were you attempting to cause him physical pain or physical impairment? Was that what you were attempting to do to him? Well, it doesn't sound to me like she attempted to injure him.
Those officers were heading down the path of making an arrest, and they changed direction. Police decide not to arrest Gabby. Instead, they separate the couple for the night. Gabby gets to leave in the van while Brian, seen by the police as a domestic violence victim, is taken to a hotel for the night. Brian and Gabby were told to stay away from each other for 24 hours.
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