The family of Gabby Petito are suing police in Moab, Utah, claiming that their failure to properly investigate their daughter’s domestic violence case led to her death last year.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys representing her parents, Joseph and Tara Petito and Nichole and Jim Schmidt, is seeking $50 million in damages.
The suit accuses the Moab Police Department, three of its officers and 10 other unnamed defendants of ‘negligent failure’ in their investigation into an alleged assault between Petito and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, who was later found responsible for Petito’s murder.
Her parents also accuse all of the defendants of ‘wrongful death,’ claiming Petito’s death was caused by their ‘wrongful acts or neglect.’
Petito’s death shocked the nation last fall. The 22-year-old from Long Island, New York had been found dead in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on September 19, after she’d been missing for a little over a week.
A coroner then determined that Petito had been dead for at least three weeks, and declared her death a homicide by strangulation.
Her fiancé, who was the main person of interest in the case, was found dead a month later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Florida’s Carlton Reserve. After his death, officials discovered a notebook in which he confessed to killing her.
In the note, Laundrie claimed Petito had fallen into a creek and became so injured that she was begging him to ‘end her pain.’
Shortly before her death, Petito had told police in Moab, Utah, that she and Laundrie had gotten into a verbal and physical fight. Attorneys hired by her parents claim those officers, who they name as ‘Palmer,’ ‘Pratt’ and Daniel Robbins ‘failed in their duty to protect Gabby.’
The suit alleges that a 911 caller told authorities they saw Laundrie slap Petito and hit her while chasing her down a sidewalk, according to CBS News.
A separate witness told police they saw the two ‘talking aggressively’ and that something ‘seemed off.’
Officer Robbins had seen the couple’s van speeding down the highway and swerving over the center yellow line, prompting him to pull them over outside of Arches National Park.
Robbins was joined by his superior, Officer Pratt, as well as two park rangers, and spoke to Laundrie and Petito separately.
While bodycam footage of that stop was released, the lawsuit claims an unreleased photo of Petito from that day shows blood smeared across her face and left eye.
The lawsuit claims that Petito showed ‘the classic hallmarks of an abused partner’ as she tried to take the blame for the abuse while being questioned by police.
Through an independent investigation into the police response, Petito’s family found that ‘officers made several mistakes and could not rule out that Gabby’s murder might have been prevented if the officers had handled the situation properly.’
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