Gabby Petito: 'One human being behaving in a way that's insidious'

Since she was reported missing on September 11, the disappearance of American woman Gabby Petito has preoccupied the minds of millions.

The 22-year-old was living her dream – traveling across the US in a van with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, starting a blog she'd quit her job to pursue.

The seemingly loved up young couple was documenting their "#vanlife" road trip to their followers across social media.

And it looked picture perfect. Happy snaps from some of the most breathtaking locations in the US — it's the kind of enviable journey most would love to be on, especially right now when so many are confined to their homes.

But, as with most things about social media, not all was as it seemed. And that become startlingly clear when Gabby and Brian were captured on police body cameras after they were pulled over in Moab, Utah.

Police had earlier received a 911 call about a domestic violence incident from a passer-by who'd seen Brian slap Gabby. But after quizzing the pair, police determined it was Gabby who was the aggressor.

On the side of the road in Utah, the world was introduced to an unfiltered version of the couple, where a visibly distressed Gabby Petito, struggling to breath at times, apologised and took the blame for Brian's erratic driving.

What criminal profiler and psychologist Laura Richards saw, was evidence of an abusive relationship.

"She's crying. She's almost hyperventilating," she said.

"Why was she distressed? The fact that she takes responsibility immediately, her disposition and demeanour of almost walking on eggshells, not wanting to get him into trouble, they're red flags to me."

The police separated the pair, and because they'd decided Brian was the victim, they sent him to a hotel for the night while Gabby slept in their van.

Laura believes police got it all wrong.

"This is one human being behaving in a way that's insidious, controlling and manipulative, not just to his girlfriend but to the police officers," she said.

" ... he clearly lied to the police officers and they believed everything he said. That makes me angry."

Another disturbing factor for Laura is a kind of "bro culture" she describes, between the male officers and Brian, while Gabby sits alone in a police car.

"My instinct about what I was seeing on camera was, this is bad news. This is not going to end well," she said.

Sadly, Laura was right. Indeed the one hour and 17 minutes of footage captured on the body cam makes for uncomfortable viewing.

It's clear there's more to this story, but what's also clear is that this may have been a precious opportunity for police to prevent the tragedy that was to come.

After almost two months on the road together, on September 1, Brian returned to his parent's home — where he was living with Gabby — alone.

There was no word about where Gabby was and calls from her family went unanswered. Even an impassioned plea to the Laundries for information about Gabby was ignored. After 10 days of deafening silence, Gabby's helpless family reported her missing.

Stop for a moment and consider how horrible that is. Gabby was living in their home. Their son had returned in Gabby's van. Yet the Laundries hired a lawyer and said nothing about the young woman who was to be their future daughter-in-law? It's staggering.

But even more bizarrely, Brian himself then disappeared. According to his parents, he went on a hike, but they didn't raise the alarm for another few days, on September 17th.

All the while, it seems police didn't even question Brian, the person closest to Gabby, about her disappearance. It's baffling.

Laura Richards thinks it's much worse than that.

"That's a dereliction of duty in my opinion," she said.

"There was a huge opportunity. And I listened to a police officer say, 'Well, we did go and speak to the family, and no crime has been committed.'

"That's absolute nonsense.

"You've got a young girl who's disappeared. You're not going to ask questions of them? You're not going to press the last person who saw her, Brian?

"And you've got baseline behaviour, everyone's saying it's abnormal, she always checks in with her family. And you're saying there's not a crime here?"

The last confirmed sighting of Gabby was on August 27. On September 20, her body was discovered on the edge of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. An autopsy confirmed she was murdered, but the cause of death has not yet been released.

A 22-year-old woman is now dead. And the person likely to hold the answers, her fiancé, is nowhere to be found. It's little comfort that police have issued a delayed warrant for his arrest — not for her disappearance, but for fraudulent use of bank cards.

This is a case that has a true-crime-obsessed public hooked. With no answers from authorities, the world of social media — where Gabby so carefully curated her life — has now seen armchair detectives hunting for clues themselves, poring over every detail in this investigation, from Gabby's Instagram posts to Spotify lists.

They're invested in Gabby Petito's story. But while the wild theories and speculation are plentiful, what's blindingly absent is any sense of justice for yet another young woman murdered and discarded as though her life didn't matter.