Steph Deschamps / October 13, 2021
The young traveler Gabby Petito, whose disappearance has caused a stir in the United States, died by strangulation and her death is a homicide, announced Tuesday the medical examiner who supervised her autopsy.
The cause of death is strangulation and it is a homicide, said Dr. Brent Blue, of Teton County in the northwestern state of Wyoming, where the body of the 22-year-old woman was found on September 19.
She was killed three to four weeks before her body was found near Grand Teton National Park, he added without giving further details of the autopsy.
Her ex-boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, is actively sought by authorities but remains unaccounted for.
He has been charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and is described as a person of interest in the investigation.
The couple had left New York in July for a trip in a converted van that was supposed to last four months and whose stages, in the grandiose settings of the national parks of the American West, were regularly shared on Instagram and YouTube, through photos and videos.
But on September 1, Brian Laundrie returned alone with the van to their Florida home.
On September 11, Gabrielle Petito's family reported her missing, saying they had not heard from her since late August.
After following the lovers' journey on social networks for weeks, Internet users began to mobilize to try to find the girl, and the media picked up the story.
The manhunt launched by the police, which takes place in a swampy reserve in Florida, and the intervention of a bounty hunter star of the reality show fascinate the American and foreign Internet users, who follow and comment all the stages of the investigation.