Part 1 of 3-part-series

What You Didn’t Realize About Gabby Petito’s Death

The story behind our obsession

Photos via Wikipedia Commons and Youtube/Collage by Author

Hope

There was a very brief period of time in early September when the only person who knew the whereabouts of 22-year old Gabby Petito was the person who killed her.

The young blogger set out, in June of this year, with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie on a cross-country road trip, and she had planned to document their entire journey on Instagram and YouTube.

But, on September 1st, Laundrie returned home to Florida alone.

There was no trace of Petito.

And when the young girl’s parents reported that she was missing, Laundrie refused to talk to the police.

Imagine how her parents felt in those moments before the truth of her death was uncovered.

Of course, they were terrified.

But there was also still the hope that she was alive. Maybe she was lost. Maybe her phone broke and she’d run out of money, and she was just trying to get home. Maybe she’d had enough of her deadbeat boyfriend, and just wanted to…