Gabby Petito ‘vanished’ for a week in chilling social media silence after Brian Laundrie attack left her face bloodied
GABBY Petito took a noticeable break from social media and hid her face after she was allegedly struck and bloodied by her fiancee.
A lawyer for the Petito family has claimed that Gabby snapped a photo of herself following the violent incident with her fiance Brian in a Utah parking lot that spurred a bystander to call the police.
According to attorney Brian Stewart, police pulled the young couple over at around 4.55pm on August 12, 2021, about 15 minutes after Gabby took the selfie.
The attorney said in the lawsuit filed against officials that the photo demonstrates cuts to Gabby's left cheek with blood smeared on her forehead and across her left eye, cheek, and nose.
The 911 caller who witnessed the incident reportedly told police that he saw Laundrie slapping and punching Gabby, 22, in a parking lot in Moab, Utah.
Cops arrived to address the situation but ultimately decided that Brian was not the aggressor.
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For the next week, Gabby failed to post on her Instagram despite previously giving regular updates on her and Brian's cross-country journey.
On August 19, she finally shared two photos, but failed to reveal her face.
"Almost immediately after telling @bizarre_design_ how happy it made me to see that people were truly respectful of the park," she said, tagging Brian on his now-frozen account.
"I watched some guy leave his processed pre-packaged plastic conglomerate of lunch garbage on the picnic table!"
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She showed a beautiful mountain view from inside their van alongside an aerial shot of the now-infamous white vehicle but did not post a picture of herself or Brian.
Her next and final post was shared on August 25 before she was believed to have been strangled and bludgeoned just days later.
DEVASTATING DAY
Gabby's family has now launched a $50million wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab City Police Department for allegedly failing to protect their visibly distraught daughter from Brian.
"Gabby pointed out the injury to Officer [Eric] Pratt, but he ignored her and did nothing more to investigate or document the injury," Stewart with Parker & McConkie wrote in the suit.
The Petitos' legal team claims Gabby was likely "strangled and/or suffocated" by Laundrie before their traffic stop, adding that the 22-year-old was not the "predominant aggressor."
Stewart told The U.S Sun exclusively: “Seeing Gabby like this is heartbreaking. Gabby clearly told the Moab Police how Brian had grabbed her face and cut her, but they ignored her and the serious danger she was in.”
In previously released body-cam footage, one of the officers concluded Gabby was the "primary aggressor," with another directly telling Laundrie, 23, he was a "victim of domestic assault."
Body-cam footage of the encounter shows an upset Gabby telling officers she and Laundrie had been "fighting all morning."
Through floods of tears, she also described how Laundrie had pushed her, grabbed her face and neck, and left her with a cut on the side of her cheek.
In their report, officers acknowledged that she had scratches and red marks on her face and arms.
A smiling Laundrie, meanwhile, issued officers a series of inconsistent statements and told them Gabby "gets worked up sometimes" and that he had been trying to calm her down.
He admitted to pushing her and claimed she struck him and scratched his face.
LEGAL BATTLE
In their lawsuit, the Petito family accuses Moab Police, Assistant Chief Braydon Palmer, attending officers Pratt and Daniel Robbins, and several other department employees of a series of "wrongful acts and neglect," which ultimately failed to protect Gabby from Laundrie, leading to her eventual death.
Those alleged wrongful acts include failing to "understand and enforce the law of the State of Utah, [and] to investigate Brian's self-evidently false claims during their interviews with him."
The Petitos also charge that Moab police failed to "properly train the officers to investigate domestic violence situations, and to properly assess the circumstances, including identifying Brian as the primary aggressor."
The Moab Police Department has not filed a response to the lawsuit from Gabby's parents, but the agency said it stands by its officers' actions.
Gabby's family is also embroiled in several; lawsuits with Laundrie's parents, Chris and Roberta.
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The blogger's family has already been awarded $3million from the Laundrie estate after they won their wrongful death lawsuit last November.
Their emotional distress case against the Laundries is scheduled to go on trial in August 2023.