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Freaky Tales | Red Band Trailer
Had police handled a domestic dispute call differently, Petito may still be alive today
Petito and Laundrie left for their cross-country trip on July 2, 2021, visiting destinations like Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park along their route. On August 12, 2021 in Moab, Utah, a 9-1-1 call was made by a witness to report a man hitting a woman several times before they drove off together. Soon after, the Moab City Police Department spotted the couple’s van driving erratically and performed a traffic stop. One officer’s body-cam footage recorded Petito explaining to officers that she was just “frustrated” and “in a bad mood” due to having OCD. “We’ve just been fighting all morning and he wouldn’t let me in the car before,” she says while crying and breathing heavily in the video footage.
Since neither Petito or Laundrie wanted to press charges and both asked not to be separated, police called the incident a “mental breakdown” and not “domestic violence.” Officers arranged for Laundrie to spend the night in a hotel while Petito spent the night in the van. The last time Petito was seen alive was 10 days later, on August 27, leaving many to speculate as to whether if the police had handled the incident as domestic violence, which would have required an arrest, the couple’s course would have been changed and Petito would still be alive today.
YouTubers helped police hone in on where to look for Petito’s body
As police searched for Petito, narrowing down the last known location of the van was critical. Many who had seen news of the disappearance shared stories of seeing the couple or just Laundrie in the the Jackson, Wyoming area contacted police, including Jenn and Kyle Bethune, van-life vloggers, who slept for a night at Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area on the night of August 27, 2021.
“I was editing our YouTube video from the Spread Creek timeline of August 27, Jenn Bethune says in the docuseries, “and I was sitting next to my phone and I got this notification from one of our RV friends and they said, ‘Check any footage you have, the timeline has changed.’ I read the National Parks Service post and it said August 27 or 28. All the color and life drained from my body because I was like, ‘I have it.’”
What Bethune “had” was video footage of Petito and Laundrie’s van pulled to the side of the road on the campgrounds. She posted the clip to YouTube where it quickly soared to over a million views. Police used the Bethune footage to hone in on the search area, which led to them locating Petito’s remains on September 19, 2021, not far from where the van was observed.
Laundrie’s mother wrote him a “burn after reading” note offering to help hide a body
After Laundrie was reported missing by his family on September 17, 2021, police searched the family’s Florida home for potential evidence and found a note written to Laundrie by his mother, Roberta Laundrie. The letter, titled “Burn After Reading,” contained statements like, “You are my boy, nothing can make me stop loving you. Nothing will, or could ever, divide us, no matter what we do. If you’re in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags.”
