Posted by Rebecca Stefan.
Recently, investigators discovered the humans remains of Brain Laundrie who is a person of interest in the death of his financee Gabby Petito. Brain Laundries belongings were also found near the human remains such as his backpack and notebook. The article states, “Investigators earlier this week had found what appeared to be human remains and a backpack and notebook that belonged to Mr. Laundrie in the Carlton Reserve near Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in North Port, Fla.” Dental records had confirmed that the body was in fact Brain Laundrie.
Gabby Petito and Brain Laundrie were on a cross country road trip together in a van. Gabby was reported missing by her family about a week after Brain returned back home from the trip without her. Gabby’s family had last spoken to her in August when she was with Brain. The article states that “Her body was later found in a remote part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming.” It was confirmed that Gabby was killed by being strangled. Brain’s family also had reported him missing and there has been a nationwide manhunt for him.
The widespread attention on Gabby Petitos case and death has caused debate as advocates and others are saying that missing people of color do not often receive this much of attention. The National Crime Information Center statistics say that there was more than 40,000 missing women in the U.S. at the end of 2020. Statistics also say that “Nearly 21,000 of these missing women were white, which includes both Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women. Close to 14,000 missing women were Black, 927 were Asian and 578 were Native American.” However, these statistics do not represent all of the missing person cases because local law-enforcement officials aren’t required to submit missing persons reports for people above the age of 21 to the NCIC database.
Rebecca is a business administration major at Seton Hall University, Stillman School of Business, Class of 2024.