Gabby Petito died by “manual strangulation” at least three weeks before her body was found, a Wyoming coroner said on Tuesday, as the woman’s missing fiancé was still being looked for all over the country. The body of the Long Island woman was found on September 19 at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Dr. Brent Blue, the Teton County Coroner, had already ruled that the woman’s death was a murder.
But the official cause of death for the 22-year-old wasn’t made public until Tuesday. Blue said that state law limited how much he could say about the death. Blue wrote in a memo from October 5 that Petito’s death was caused by “manual strangulation or choking.” The memo was filed on Tuesday. Blue told reporters, “Our first guess is that the body had been in the woods for three to four weeks” before it was found. This would mean that she died between the middle and end of August.
During his meeting with the reporters, Blue did not answer any questions about who might have killed the woman. But the coroner did seem to imply that Petito had been hurt by a family member. “This is just one of many domestic violence-related deaths across the country, and it’s sad that these other deaths don’t get as much attention as this one “Blue said. A lawyer for Laundrie’s family, Steven Bertolino, said again that Brian Laundrie is not a suspect in Petito’s death or disappearance.
“It’s sad that Gabby Petito died at such a young age, “Bertolino said in a Tuesday afternoon statement. “Brian Laundrie is being charged with using Gabby’s debit card without her permission, but he is only being looked at as a person of interest in the death of Gabby Petito. At the moment, Brian is still missing, and we will deal with the fraud charge against him when we find him.”
Petito and Laundrie were on a cross-country road trip and posted about it on social media. On September 1, Petito went back to his parent’s home in North Port, Florida, without Laundrie. On September 11, the woman’s family reported her missing, and Laundrie himself soon disappeared. Laundrie’s family told police that he went hiking on September 14 in Florida’s Carlton Reserve and never came back. Law enforcement looked for him several times in the 25,000-acre wildlife refuge.
Since then, Laundrie has been seen many times all up and down the East Coast. Police have only called Laundrie a “person of interest” so far in their search for Petito, but they have issued a warrant for his arrest because they say he used her debit card without permission. Also last month, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office in Utah released 911 audio from a witness who said he saw a man hit a woman and then a white Ford Transit van with a Florida license plate drive away. Moab police stopped the van driven by Laundrie and carrying Petito on August 12 because of the 911 call.
Police wrote that Petito had hit Laundrie during what seemed to be a “break” in his mind and emotions. They made the couple spend the night apart so that Petito wouldn’t be charged with domestic violence. The news paid a lot of attention to Petito’s disappearance, which made people wonder why missing people who are not white don’t get the same amount of attention. Native American communities in the area are especially angry about the lack of national attention because many Native American women have gone missing without much or any news coverage.
