The Silence of the Laundrie Parents

 

Much has been written and reported about Gabby Petito’s murder.  There is no need to extensively revisit what is largely known.  She was traveling with boyfriend Brian Laundrie on a vlogging tour of the western states when she was murdered.

 The boyfriend genius returned to his parents home on September 1^st with her van, her credit cards, and her money without telling anyone what happened to her.  Gabby’s parents kept asking what happened to their daughter but all they heard from the Laundrie family is crickets chirping in the night.

  The manner of death was announced as homicide. What wasn’t announced until a few days ago was the cause of death: strangulation.

 Strangulation makes it personal. Strangulation fits the domestic violence profile.  Strangulation fits the videos we’ve seen and the accounts we’ve heard about of Brian Laundrie’s abuse of his girlfriend.   

The autopsy report also said that Gabby Petito’s body had been lying out in the open for a period of about three or four weeks. 

This puts the day she was murdered very close to the day she was last seen, the day boyfriend Brian Laundrie slapped Gabby around and made a huge ass of himself at the Merry Piglets Diner in Jackson Hole Wyoming. The date was August 27, according to Nina Angelo, who dined in the same restaurant that day. The date was confirmed by restaurant employees and by receipts.

This theory corresponds with the suspicious email Gabby’s parents received that very same day  . The email referring to “Stan” the grandfather whose name Gabby would never use in this third-party way of referring to him.  

Gabby’s mom thinks the email was sent by Brian Laundrie to cover up her murder at his own hands.  She’s probably right.

Everyone has an angle on the case and so do I.  My angle on this story concerns the non-responsive behavior of Brian Laundrie’s parents.  

   It’s not unusual for parents to cover for their children who make serious mistakes in life. Go to the visiting rooms of any prison and you’ll see. But how many of those supportive friends and family members would cover up for murder?   

Can they pretend a death was accidental or in self-defense when the medical examiner first informs the public the manner of death was homicide?  Can they forgive the murder of a woman they said was like a daughter to them?

Don’t they feel guilty in plotting   the escape of an adult son who is a ‘likely suspect’  in the murder of a young woman who’d been living with them for a long time? We all know that people are not required  by law to assist police. But   to shut the door to police and Gabby’s parents, is a monstrous unspeakable act that defies the laws of civilized people.

Now with both the manner of death and cause of death made public, the   Laundrie parents are under tremendous pressure.  They’re experiencing a modern version of drip torture 2.0.  This case is not rocket science.

 The police likely have enough evidence to conclude that Brian murdered Gabby. They’re working on proving it.  While they’re doing so they’re under no obligation to release details that will help the Laundrie’s lawyer. 

A suspect in a murder case may make several mistakes and still escape justice.  Cops make a single mistake in a murder investigation and a killer can go free. Remember Johnny Cochran: “If it (the glove) doesn’t fit, you must acquit?” It was an absurd tactic but ti worked.

Police okayed the medical examiner releasing that first report that the manner of death was homicide. This was intended to put pressure on the  parents who refuse to talk except in carefully planned and lawyerly phrases. Their silence is offensive. Even people as numb to Gabby’s human life as the Laundries must feel something.   

The ‘homicide’ announcement was firepower directed over the bow.  The “strangulation” announcement October 12 is a direct blast to the Laundrie quarterdeck. 

With homicide being the manner of death, and strangulation being the cause of it, any line of defense is necessarily limited.  You can’t claim accident.  All you can do is claim someone else strangled her.

I know it’s not fashionable to claim that the police are handling any case with a high degree of intelligence and concern. But they’re handling this one perfectly, and in a way that reminds me of the casual but shrewd inspector in Fyodor Dostoevski’s great novel “Crime and Punishment.”

Raskolnikov crumbled under the pressure. So too will the Laundries — in one way or another and however long it takes — they will be eventually crushed under the weight of their monstrous disregard of that poor girl’s life.