Narcissistic Traits in the Gabby Petito Case
What we know.
Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were dating for 3 year and were engaged, but because of the pandemic they put the wedding on hold and decided to go on a road trip across country in a van.
July 2nd 2021 they left on a cross country trip
The were documenting their entire trip on YouTube and social media
Entire trip is filled with kisses and laughs
They were interested in WWOOFing
WORLD WIDE OPPORTUNITIES ON ORGANIC FARMS
https://wwoofinternational.org/how-it-works/
Aug 12, 2021
Pulled over in Utah for domestic violence because of a witness calling in.
Aug. 25th
Last time parents spoke to Gabby.
Aug 26th.
We know that Jessica Schultz, a TikToker saw Gabby and Brian’s van at Spread Creek, a creek in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.
https://www.gtlc.com/lodges
Sept 1st.
We know that Brian Laundrie came back with the van with no Gabby. We know that Brian and his family did nothing to help try to locate missing Gabby.
Sept 11th.
Ten days after Brian came home, Gabby’s parents filed a missing person report.
Sept 19th
We know that weeks later, Gabby’s body was found at Wyoming Nation Park and her death has been ruled a homicide.
First thing I want to talk about is the domestic call from a witness that saw Gabby and Brian arguing. I actually went above and beyond with this and actually went digging for the original cop-cam to see the entire interaction with Gabby and Brian, verse going off of what the media is feeding to us.
This happened on Aug. 12th
First thing is the police officer pulled behind Brian as he was driving and turned his lights on, about 30 seconds later he hit a curb and pulled over.
When the police walked up Gabby was visibly really upset and Brian seemed fine.
The entire video is over an hour long, but I want to notate a few things that really stood out to me.
You can find the link online if you want to watch it, it’s an hour long.
Gabby Petito Disappearance: Raw Bodycam Video of Her Interaction With Police in Utah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uof90tKl6SE
The police officer pulled Gabby aside and left Brian in the vehicle in order to give Gabby the privacy to speak openly, which I appreciated. I am going to tell you what happened, and then I am going to tell you what I wish happened.
Officer asked Gabby what happened.
Gabby responded with:
‘I am so sorry I am so mean
I have OCD sometimes and my vibe can seem like I am in a bad mood
I just quit my job and I started a blog'
Then she continues,
'He doesn’t really believe I can do any of it, that has really been like…I dunno…’
NOW right here I where I want to intervene. That right there is minimizing. A key trait that people with narcissistic traits do. They take something that you are doing and put doubt in your mind that you can do it. They do not lift up, they bring down. A lot of this extends from ego and causes the victim to feel dumb and silly for even trying which can be maddening if done enough.
Right here the officer should have stepped in and made her extend on that comment by asking how him not believing in her makes her FEEL. This is a sign of mental and emotional abuse, and can only be explained through FEELING. If someone is constantly yanking at your self-worth it can be infuriating.
She then goes on to say they had been fighting all morning
He wouldn’t let her in the car (it’s her car)
She then states,
'He really stresses me out… I am normally calm… he stresses me out.'
This is another part where I want to intervene.
She states she is normally calm, he stresses me out. Getting a RISE out of victims is something abusive partners do. The important thing to remember here is that these two people are very young, they probably have very little self-awareness so it is our duty as older knowledgable people, and officers to dig in and break things down. I was abused for 8 years in my worst abusive relationship, and I had NO IDEA I was being abused.
The officer again should have pressed her to explain what do you mean you are normally calm? Where are you most calm at, and with who? How does Brian stress you out? What exactly does he do?
Mental and emotional abuse is 100% invisible. I endured abuse that would bring me to my knees in tears and I had zero bruises or cuts to prove any abuse.
The next thing I want to point out is when the officer goes to talk to Brian he refers to Gabby’s website as, ‘She is trying to set up a little blog or little website.’
He himself referring to her work as LITTLE is a HUGE red flag that there is ego, minimizing involved. He is basically dismissing it as nonsensical or idiotic.
RIGHT here you can clearly see that Gabby and Brian both agree that is a MAIN PAIN point, and they are both INVISIBLY agreeing and mentioning that same issue.
In the video you can clearly see that Gabby, Brian and the eye witness all agree that Gabby was the aggressor and was hitting Brian. Brian did not hit Gabby, Brian locked himself in the car so stay away from her.
I want to make a point here also. The van is her van, it is in her name. You do not find this out in this interaction because the officers never ask who’s vehicle it is. However, imagine if you are being made fun of, poke at verbally, then you get to a point of being heated mentally and then your partner locks you out of our own vehicle. I believe that would be frustrating. I looked up the weather in Utah for Sept and it is right around 80 degrees. That could be uncomfortable, especially if the person that is getting you to a breaking point is sitting in air conditioning.
A few things about Brian.
He sincerely shows love to Gabby in front of the officers
He offers to switch places with her when they say they need to take her to jail
He says he loves her twice
He admits that he drives her crazy because he is dirty
He gets emotional in front of officer
Gabby and I are a team.
He offers to let Gabby have the van (it’s her van) and he will sleep in his sleeping bag in a random place.
These few things actually made me feel warmth towards Brian. This is where it gets sticky. Covert abusers or covert narcissists are GREAT at looking normal and making their victim look crazy.
So much so that the victim actually starts to feel crazy because they are the only one that is crying, yelling or acting a fool.
At the end of this video Gabby keeps her van and Brian is checked into a battered women’s type place since he was the victim. The police officers tell them to go NO CONTACT (which is actually a narc abuse vocab word we know all too much about!)
All this information does not tell us how this death came about. This video does not share who is the abusive partner because these officers are not trained to detect mental and emotional abuse. As notated, they only concentrated on the physical abuse… it has been this way for DECADES. Abuse is only abuse if it is visible.
Let me share a story with you. And then I will close up with the moral of the story
Early on in my ex-abusive relationship I was taking time out of my own day to help him set up his first office. We were cleaning and organizing. I took it upon myself to start vacuuming one of the rooms. After I was done I put the vacuum away and continued tidying up. About 5 minutes later my ex yells out to me, I stop what I am doing and walk towards him. He was staring into the office I just vacuumed.
As I approached he rudely says, ‘What is this?’ While pointing to the carpet.
I was confused.
He then proceeds to tell me that the vacuum marks are going the wrong way.
Confused still, I say, “What do you mean?’
He then says, ‘Are you serious? Didn’t your parents teach you how to vacuum?’
That comment hit me right in the throat. I shove the feeling down and responded calmly, ‘It looks fine. There is so much to do. I can re-vaccum later, now I know.’
He then continues to harass me,
‘I can’t believe you don’t know how to vacuum, everyone knows the marks go in a line to elongate the room, your marks make it look small.’
As he is saying this I walk away and continue to clean the area I was cleaning previously.
He then continues, ‘I have to do everything myself.’ Pause. ‘I can’t count on you for anything.’ Pause. ’Can you do anything right?’ Pause. ‘What are you doing right now? You can’t fix this now?’ Pause. ‘You are unbelievable.’
During each pause he is getting more and more frustrated with me for not caving in and doing as he asked. As the comments continue to get thrown at me an anger inside me is boiling so hot I can’t even stand it. I stop what I am doing, walk over to the storage closet, swing the door open and pull out the vacuum.
He is still berating me, ‘Oh, now you are going to give me attitude? Don’t swing the doors open like that you are going to hit the wall, this isn’t your office.’ Pause. ‘You are acting like you can’t do this one thing for me. You are unbelievable.’
My head is about to explode because everything he is saying about me is absolutely false. I was happy to help, I was being a compete team player. I was there helping on my own time, it was 10pm. I was fully supporting him, and had already spent hours and hours that whole week putting together furniture, organizing sales material, helping with all the wiring for the computers and phones. I was confused, I was hurt, I felt defeated, anger, unappreciated.
As I passed him in the hallway to get back Into the room, he was still harassing me, out of anger I allowed my shoulder to hit his shoulder as I passed him. Within 1/2 second he took both my shoulders and threw me into the wall. He said one sentence to me that I never forgot to this day, he said, ‘You start hitting me, I will start hitting you. You understand me?’ I was so shocked by the impact that I don’t think I even said anything. He let me go, I put my head down like a child and grabbed the vacuum. I fixed the lines.
It was at that moment that I should have seen my future. I stayed with that man for 13 years. The verbal abuse got worse as the years went on. The harassing was daily, and it was about anything and everything. I would go above and beyond in our business, in my cooking, my housecleaning, laundry. It did not matter, he would always find something.
The arguments would go for hours on end, with him just following me around the house harassing me. It didn’t matter what time it was. He would start arguments at 9pm that would last until 4am. I would scream-cry weekly, on the floor begging for him to let me sleep. He would smile when I would cry, he would find joy in my pain.
The cycle was always the same. I would start out calm, I would try to help or fix or explain whatever he needed. The harassing would escalate and my personality and demeanor would start to shift to distressed, then to desperate, then to crying, then to screaming, then to scream-crying on the floor. At this point you would think the argument was over, but this was his favorite part. When I was so tired, so exhausted from explaining or trying to fix whatever the issue was he would then look at me in shame. Say that I was a drama queen, weak, a baby, that he thought I was stronger than that. He would tell me that I was actually like a Mexican from the ghetto and that my parents never taught me how to argue calmly like white people.
Over the years as my words and tears feel upon deaf ears I got to a point where violence started to enter my mind. Suicide always seemed like an option, to just make it all stop. I remember confining in someone at a point saying, ‘I have to get out of here, because one of us is going to end up on the front page of the newspaper for murder.’
I wasn’t saying that because I thought my ex was going to hit me. I was saying that because I knew I was getting to a point where my emotional and mental capacity was getting too weak, my anger was so strong that words were no longer an option… the only option was violence.
To point the finger at the boyfriend or to point the finger at the girlfriend is impossible. We have no idea who is at fault here. Narcissists come in female and male bodies.
What I am going to say, is if you are in a relationship where you are feeling like YOUR anger is going to turn violent because your partner is harassing you to the point of insanity, you need to get out.
If you lash out you could kill them… OR they could kill you. You are responsible for your behavior. I am now in a loving relationship.
For years I seriously thought I was insane, I thought I was absolute nuts. However, now that I am in a healthy relationship… I never ever get a feeling of wanting to hurt someone, ever. I never have thoughts of suicide or wanting to throw things.
My frustration never escalates to being on the floor scream crying. Our arguments never last for anymore than an hour before it is patched up and we are moving on and getting back to the important things in life.