Gabby Petito’s final text message to her mother was revealed in the new search warrant from North Port, Florida, police, and it reveals something odd about Petito’s final whereabouts.
What happened to Gabby Petito?
Petito, 22, was reported missing on Sept. 11 after she and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, went on a cross-country road trip. Laundrie returned home to North Port on Sept. 1 without Petito. A search for Petito began after she was reported missing 10 days later.
On Sunday, the search for Gabby Petito took a dark turn when the FBI said it had found human remains that were consistent with the description of Petito in Wyoming.
- “Earlier today, human remains were discovered consistent with the description of Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito,” said FBI Supervisory Agent Charles Jones at a press conference Sunday.
What was Gabby Petito’s final text message? Who is Stan?
There have been several questions about what happened to Petito in those final days. Some of those questions surround her text messages.
Nicole Schmidt, Petito’s mother, said she received text messages from her daughter on Aug. 27 and Aug. 30, according to Fox News. But the texts seemed odd to her.
A new search warrant from North Port, Florida, police, which gives them permission to look through a hard drive found in Petito’s white van, reveals a text message that was considered odd by her family, according to The Daily Beast.
- “The text message read, ‘Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls,’” the warrant states. “The reference to ‘Stan,’ was regarding her grandfather, but per the mother, she never calls him ‘Stan.’ The mother was concerned that something was wrong with her daughter.”
- Petito then “stopped posting anything on social media about their trip” and her phone was powered off, the warrant says.
- “Per her family, this was not normal behavior for the subject, and they became more worried about her,” the warrant states.
Last week, Petito’s attorney Richard Stafford said Petito had sent a separate text message that read, “No service in Yosemite.”
But, as I wrote for the Deseret News, Schmidt said she doesn’t think the final text came from her daughter.
- “She doesn’t believe it was from her daughter,” said Stafford, according to Insider. “Looking back now with all the facts ... she believes it’s not her daughter.”
- ”She’s not going to say who she believes it was from,” Stafford said.