Why is everyone so obsessed with Gabby Petito?

SDSU Aztec wrote:

fada tyme wrote:

A judge is going to instruct the jury as to what the appropriate statue is to what the defendant is charged with and what is required to find the accused guilty.

Based on what is out there as evidence, I doubt he could be convicted of any crime let alone a murder.

If you and a collection of 11 other jurors convicted this likely accused based on flight and "who else could have done it", the judge could very well throw out the conviction.

I assume you've never set foot in a courtroom and certainly could not have served on a jury.

You guys are saying that direct evidence is needed for a conviction and that's not true. That some other dude did it or a bear ate her does not create reasonable doubt for me.

No one is saying that. What's being said that the evidence which is currently available would not result in a conviction or possibly even charges being levied. In addition to not understanding the justice system, you also seem to have difficulty understanding what circumstantial and direct evidence is.

What I’m really curious about — though we’ll certainly not know the entire truth — is what he said to his parents. He came back Sep 1 without her. She was apparently living with them before the trip, so it’s very obvious something’s happened. We don’t know when her parents came to know that he was back, but it must have taken the better part of the 10 days in between Sep 1 and Sep 11, when they filed a missing person complaint, for them to realize she’s missing. He lived with them for a good two weeks (Sep 1 - Sep 15) before absconding.

I’m guessing his parents advised him to lawyer up, and if a murder did happen, they probably helped him conceal it while protecting themselves from being accused of any wrongdoing. (Not blaming his parents; they probably did what many if not most parents would do to protect their child.)

SDSU Aztec wrote:

fada tyme wrote:

A judge is going to instruct the jury as to what the appropriate statue is to what the defendant is charged with and what is required to find the accused guilty.

Based on what is out there as evidence, I doubt he could be convicted of any crime let alone a murder.

If you and a collection of 11 other jurors convicted this likely accused based on flight and "who else could have done it", the judge could very well throw out the conviction.

I assume you've never set foot in a courtroom and certainly could not have served on a jury.

You guys are saying that direct evidence is needed for a conviction and that's not true. That some other dude did it or a bear ate her does not create reasonable doubt for me.

Let me point out that a good defense attorney would eliminate everyone like you from the jury pool by questioning you under oath or by screening social media posts to see if you had expressed an opinion on the case. Your posts are not anonymous here... or anywhere online.

In the trial, a good defense attorney would float one or two alternative scenarios and ask the jury, "How can you be positively certain that this alternate scenario wasn't the cause? If you can't be positively certain that (insert alternative scenario here), then there is reasonable doubt and must vote not guilty."

A reasonable alternative theory that fits everything would be easy to float. They had an argument. She left. When she didn't return, he went looking for her, found the body (either suicide or foul play), and freaked out, knowing that he was the likely suspect.

Did that happen? Probably not, but "probably not" is not the same as "beyond a reasonable doubt."

SDSU Aztec wrote:

You guys are saying that direct evidence is needed for a conviction and that's not true. That some other dude did it or a bear ate her does not create reasonable doubt for me.

No, we are saying that while circumstantial evidence may be adequate to secure a conviction, the circumstantial evidence that has been made public is inadequate to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy murdered her.

Again, a totally different issue from whether or not I think he did (I do), or whether or not there is a good explanation for his behavior after she went missing (I don't think there is).

Yeah it appears obvious the boyfriend killed her. He's banking on avoidance, his right to remain silent/act unknowing to get him through this. But I'm sure they'll eventually decide the outside evidence is overwhelming enough to convict him if he doesn't kill himself first.

Smoove wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

You guys are saying that direct evidence is needed for a conviction and that's not true. That some other dude did it or a bear ate her does not create reasonable doubt for me.

No, we are saying that while circumstantial evidence may be adequate to secure a conviction, the circumstantial evidence that has been made public is inadequate to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy murdered her.

+1. This is the point everyone is making SDSU.

This is beyond a non-story.

They'll find him in a week or two, when someone spots him in a convenient mart or whatever. He killed her, and the trial will drag out years. Politically, I'm thinking the right side will be with him, because he'll produce a gun or knife. Libs will be with her. Because it's FL, this is Terry Schiavo, or jackbooted thugs all over again (ignore that jackbooted thugs is entirely backwards now).

dat rhombus wrote:

Smoove wrote:

No, we are saying that while circumstantial evidence may be adequate to secure a conviction, the circumstantial evidence that has been made public is inadequate to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy murdered her.

+1. This is the point everyone is making SDSU.

The above claim of circumstantial evidence currently known publicly being insufficient for conviction may or may not be right. Although the right to remain silent can not be used as incriminating evidence, fleeing can be used as incriminating evidence. He refused to cooperate with law enforcement and then fled, that much is known publicly already. Whether that’s sufficient for conviction or not is not clear, but one can’t categorically say that that it is insufficient to convict him for murder were it to be established that she was murdered. As of right now, her murder itself has not been established.

Quote from the article linked to above:

“Indeed, jurors receive an instruction from the judge that a defendant’s right to remain silent cannot be used against him. But evidence of flight while under suspicion of a crime enjoys no such protection. Just the opposite; it is incriminating evidence of guilt.”

"Why is everyone so obsessed with Gabby Petito?"

I have no idea who that is, and am fine with it.

Former news guy, for a LONG time wrote:

This is beyond a non-story.

They'll find him in a week or two, when someone spots him in a convenient mart or whatever. He killed her, and the trial will drag out years. Politically, I'm thinking the right side will be with him, because he'll produce a gun or knife. Libs will be with her. Because it's FL, this is Terry Schiavo, or jackbooted thugs all over again (ignore that jackbooted thugs is entirely backwards now).

The right is not stereotypically known to side with a known killer. If anything, the right tends to be tough on violent crime. I don’t see politics playing an important role here. Most people, left and right, seem to think he killed her and it’s just a matter of proving it.

Former news guy, for a LONG time wrote:

This is beyond a non-story.

They'll find him in a week or two, when someone spots him in a convenient mart or whatever. He killed her, and the trial will drag out years. Politically, I'm thinking the right side will be with him, because he'll produce a gun or knife. Libs will be with her. Because it's FL, this is Terry Schiavo, or jackbooted thugs all over again (ignore that jackbooted thugs is entirely backwards now).

They may never find the "downer" boyfriend, at least not all of him. He likely offed himself and is now gator food.

Aw she had cute feet. Dang what a shame.

Discusss wrote:

jecht wrote:

The craziest one though was in CLE, where the three girls were held hostage in the house by that crazy dude for years.

Something like that doesn’t happen without a good bit of Stockholm syndrome. It’s rather difficult to keep even one adult captive against their will for years, leave alone three.

I doubt it, given how that incident (if a decade can really be called that) ended. Literally the first time the criminal forgot to fully lock down the house, one of the victims got to a window and called for help.

I never said evidence of flight could not be used, just that his refusal to speak could not be used for the purpose of establishing guilt.

If he fled, then that could be used as evidence of guilt. That being said, I am not sure that we even have that, yet.

We know that they were together one day, then he drove back to Florida in her van. Is that fleeing, or is that going home?

We know that he has hired a lawyer and that he is refusing to answer questions and has no duty to answer questions, nor does he have a duty to remain in his home, or even his home state. So him leaving again after his return to Florida isn't evidence of fleeing either.

Notwithstanding that, I do think that prosecutors would manage to work the fact that he drove home with apparent haste and that he went to ground after the story got out into the questioning of witnesses, and that won't be lost on the jury.

ridicula wrote:

800 dude wrote:

You are working backwards from the obviously false premise that all murders must be provable. …

Actually, all murders must be provable, beyond a reasonable doubt at least. Otherwise it’s not a murder, a term that has a legal definition.

Uh, no. That's not how the word "murder" is used in either legal or common English. "Murder" doesn't mean "a criminal conviction for murder." That's why you can could call someone a murderer who was acquitted, get sued for defamation, and still win if the jury concludes beyond a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff was, in fact, a murderer.

dat rhombus wrote:

Why are people obsessed? Easy. So many questions that don't make sense:

Mental health seems to be at the forefront of this situation. Petito apparently cried for the duration of the police stop (over one hour) and couldn't regain composure. Contrast that with her being a pretty, young, and blond girl and there's a mismatch in most people's minds.

This young woman is dead and her fiance is a suspect is what could be her murder. You cannot separate mental health problems from a victim of domestic violence. She was in an extremely traumatic situation for at least a month.

There is a 911 call from people who witnessed Laundrie slapping and then hitting Petito out in front of a food co-op. The witnesses reported the exact Florida license plate - that’s why the van was pulled over. I can only assume the details of what that 911 caller witnessed were not related to the police officers. Otherwise, they would have taken Laundrie in for hitting hit girlfriend.

The marks on his arm and hand were likely defensive on the part of Petito. One report was that Laundrie had locked Petito out of the van and hung her backpack on the back ladder. She had to climb in through the drivers side window to get inside her “home” or be left in the desert in August because Laundrie had locked the doors.

They fought over her phone and they were completely out of water. How? They just left the food co-op. She was trying to start her blog and they were camping long periods in spots where there was no Internet service. All of these things are possible areas where an abuser will control things.

If you don’t know much about domestic violence, then learn the signs. Abused children and abused women (and men for that matter) lie to protect their abuser. They fear exposing the abuser because it can threaten their very life to do so.

Sounds like we agree that circumstantial evidence known publicly thus far could be plausibly used by prosecutors to get a conviction but it’s hardly a slam dunk.

I didn’t say you said evidence of flight could not be used, so we agree on that too. But you did say that circumstantial evidence known publicly thus far is insufficient to convict him, so I responded to that by saying we can’t be sure about that insufficiency claim one way or the other.

fada tyme wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

You guys are saying that direct evidence is needed for a conviction and that's not true. That some other dude did it or a bear ate her does not create reasonable doubt for me.

No one is saying that. What's being said that the evidence which is currently available would not result in a conviction or possibly even charges being levied. In addition to not understanding the justice system, you also seem to have difficulty understanding what circumstantial and direct evidence is.

None of us are prosecuters or defense attorneys so F your guys' ID Channel knowledge. People can be convicted with only circumstancel evidence and it's very compelling in this case. The defense claiming a bear did it does not create reasonable doubt for me. Maybe it does for you but it doesn't mean you're a legal expert and I'm ignorant.

All of the things known to date is actual evidence and will not be dismissed by the judge. The jury will weigh it against whatever story the defense comes up with and for sure, the defense will point out there is no direct evidence that he killed her. The judge isn't going to instruct the jury to ignore the circumstancel evidence.

There was no direct evidence that Scott Peterson murdered his wife but he was still convicted. What's up with that?