UW hosted a Q&A session with the mothers of murder victim Gabby Petito on Monday, September 16th.
In September of 2021, 22-year-old Gabby Petito was found dead in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest after having been missing for a month. Her fiancé Brian Laundrie was the main suspect. He was found dead in a Florida nature preserve in October, having ended his own life. In a notebook found near his remains, police discovered that Laundrie had confessed to killing Petito.
A couple of weeks before the disappearance of Gabby Petito, police outside of Moab, Utah stopped the couple because of a report of a man hitting a woman.
Albany County Safe Project reached out to Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, and her stepmother, Tara Petito, inviting them to speak on campus about domestic violence.
Violence Prevention Coordinator, Bob Vines said at the beginning of the discussion. “In response to her death, both sets of Gabby’s parents started the Gabby Petito Foundation. [It] is rooted in the belief that we all have an inherent responsibility to make a meaningful difference in our communities. With a variety of big ideas and goals, it is the GPF’s hope to be at the forefront of positive and proactive change with awareness, prevention strategies, and education.”
Petito’s mothers answered questions for over an hour.
“I wanted to jump through the screen the first time I saw [the police bodycam footage],” Schmidt said. “It’s a typical scenario. They flip it around and the victim becomes the perpetrator.”
“You’re not crazy,” Petito added. “What [Gabby] was feeling was real, but they make you believe that what you’re feeling is not.”
The police officer in the bodycam footage has an alleged history of abuse and violence. After his interaction with Petito and Laundrie, the officer was promoted and now works in a school.
“It’s very upsetting to us because we know there is a lot of officer involved domestic violence across the country… and that’s something that needs to change across the board,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt explained that when she described first meeting Brian Laundrie. “I thought he was the nicest, kindest person… I trusted him because he manipulated me into seeing him as trustworthy.”
Tara Petito agreed, saying she liked him when they first met. But that soon changed when Gabby’s behavior began to change before her disappearance.
When asked how to make changes and take steps forward in awareness and education, Executive Director of SAFE Project, Amy Haefner stepped up to say, “We host a 40-hour advocacy training three times a year, and those people usually help us staff our hotline. We’re a very small staff and we can’t do this work without volunteers and we have a training coming up in October. If anyone is interested, that is another way you can get involved in the community.”
“We are here advocating… because we know it is important to save lives,” Schmidt said.
Petito then added, “That’s why we opened the Gabby Petito Foundation… we saw an opportunity to use that platform to not only get her story out there but to help others and get their stories out there so we can really fight. Domestic violence is a worldwide issue, it’s not just a Gabby issue.”
