If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
Attorneys for Gabby Pettit’s family are asking a Utah judge to allow their wrongful death lawsuit to continue. Pettit’s parents are slamming Moab police for downplaying their alleged lack of investigation during an August 2021 traffic stop, just two weeks before she was killed for financial gain.
Moab’s lawyers have described the Pettit family’s $50 million lawsuit as a substitute “GoFundMe campaign,” sparking an outcry from public opinion and accusing Pettit’s parents of insensitive response.
“Honestly, I’m upset at the way Moab responded and the attitude they took,” her father, Joseph Pettit, told Fox News Digital. “The official investigation report concluded that their officers made serious mistakes. The Moab officers Googled the law and admitted they had no discretion and that not following the law could have resulted in the victim being killed. It’s all on video and on record. And they chose not to follow the law, and that’s exactly what happened. Gabby was killed. It’s inexcusable that they can’t be held accountable for their failures, and that’s why we must pursue this case.”
Fox News Digital first reported the encounter with Moab police in September 2021 after Pettit was reported missing.
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Gabby Pettit took this selfie with blood on her face after being pulled over for a traffic violation in Moab, Utah on August 12, 2021. (Parker & McConkey)
A witness called Moab Police to report seeing a man hitting a woman in public in the town center on Aug. 12, 2021. The witness provided Pettit’s license plate number, and police found her van near the entrance to Arches National Park.
Body camera footage shows officers questioning 22-year-old Pettit, who was visibly upset and showed signs of having been abused, and her suspected killer, 23-year-old Brian Landry.
“Moab hasn’t figured it out yet,” her father said, “This case has never been about money. It has always been about accountability and fighting for change that saves lives. When law enforcement agencies, like the Moab Police Department, fail to uphold the law, fail to protect and refuse to learn from their mistakes, they put us all at risk.”
In the video, Moab Police Officer Eric Pratt reads aloud Utah’s laws regarding domestic violence reporting.
Read the dissent:
Gabby Pettit investigation: 911 call reveals Brian Landry was seen punching and ‘slapping’ her before her disappearance
“You know why domestic violence laws exist: to protect people,” he says. “The reason we don’t have discretion in these things is because so many women are at risk and they want to go back to their abusers. They just want them to stop. They don’t want to leave, they don’t want him to be prosecuted, they don’t want him to go to prison, and so they end up getting treated worse and worse, they end up getting killed.”
His words were frighteningly prophetic: After the fight, Landry flew to his home in Florida, leaving Pettit behind in Salt Lake City.
Body camera footage released by investigators shows Moab Police Officer Eric Pratt speaking with Brian Landry on Aug. 12, 2021. (Moab City Police Department)
But he returned to Utah and, days later, bludgeoned and strangled Ms Pettit to death, left her body in the Wyoming wilderness and drove her van across the country to use her debit card.
“These statements reflect Officer Pratt’s clear understanding that the victim could be killed if police failed to follow Utah law,” attorneys for Pettit’s parents wrote in a court filing this week.
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“Mr. Pettit’s murder is an undeniable tragedy. Mr. Landry’s crime is undeniably heinous, but the justice system is no substitute for a GoFundMe campaign.”
Moab police would have already been following the Lethality Assessment Protocol (LAP), which Pettit’s family has lobbied to make mandatory in Utah and Florida, and Pettit’s parents are working through the Gabby Pettit Foundation to get similar laws enacted in other states.
Brian Landry is seen in body camera footage released by the Moab Police Department in Utah. (Moab Police Department)
Moab ostensibly adopted the LAP. Known as the Maryland ModelThe system, devised voluntarily in 2018 to “reduce risk and save lives,” asks victims a series of questions to look for specific warning signs, and a law taking effect in 2023 will require a similar process for domestic violence calls across Utah.
“The Pettit family’s civil lawsuit is not about money,” said Pettit family attorney Brian Stewart. “The award of damages is the only remedy available in our civil justice system and may be the only tool that will induce change in institutions like the Moab Police Department.”
Gabby Pettit urges Brian Landry to ‘stop crying’ in love letter to murderer
Read Moab’s motion to dismiss:
But even though current state law requires officers to arrest or charge either Pettit or Landry after the stop, Pratt and his partner-in-training, Officer Daniel Robbins, officially characterized the incident as a “mental illness” rather than a domestic violence incident.
Instead, they separated them for the night, with Landry staying at a motel and Pettit sleeping alone in the van.
Brian Landry’s parents acknowledged they were concerned about Gabby Pettit’s welfare when she called them days after the murder.
The Bowen Motel in Moab, Utah, where police reportedly detained Brian Landry after a fight with Gabby Pettit. (Michael Lewis/Fox News Digital)
“As their response shows, Moab does not understand the heavy cost that will be imposed on the Pettit family and others if they choose not to follow the law and not perform their duties properly,” Stewart added. “To demand change and accountability, they must bear some of that burden by paying even more for such failures in the future.”
Parker and McConkeyThe defense team seeking a $50 million judgment against Moab announced this week that they were also representing the Pettit family with former Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham, who served on the Supreme Court for decades and whom Stewart described as one of the country’s most distinguished jurists.
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Gabby Pettit’s parents, Joseph Pettit and Nicole Schmidt, stood in a Florida courtroom on Wednesday, May 24, during a hearing in their civil lawsuit against the parents of their daughter’s suspected killer, Brian Landry. (Pool)
“The Moab officers Googled the law themselves and acknowledged that they had no discretion and that if they did not follow the law the victim could be killed. It was all on video and on record. And they chose not to follow the law. And that is exactly what happened. Gabby was killed.”
Moab’s lawyers asked a judge in April to dismiss the case, arguing that police are protected by government immunity laws.
“Mr. Pettit’s murder is undeniably heartbreaking. Mr. Landry’s crime is undeniably heinous, but the justice system is no substitute for a GoFundMe campaign,” they wrote. “Heartbreak is not enough.”
Brian Landry found: parents may have failed to find body
Stewart’s team filed a dissent this week arguing that wrongful death lawsuits against the government are protected under Utah’s Constitution, noting that the state’s Mormon founders faced government-backed persecution when they settled in the area.
Police body camera footage from August 12 shows Gaby Petitot appearing extremely upset after being pulled over by police following a report of domestic trouble between a husband and wife. (Moab Police Department)
“Gabby’s tragic murder at the hands of her fiancé could have been prevented,” they wrote. “Moab and its officers should have followed Utah law and Moab’s Domestic Violence Prevention Act, or LAP. They failed to do so.”
On September 19, 2021, an FBI-led search led to the discovery of Pettit’s body at a campsite near where she was last seen in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming.
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Landry drove in a van to his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, where he camped with the family and then fled when police attempted to question him.
Moonflower Cooperative organic grocery store in Moab, Utah. Witnesses reported a domestic violence incident to Moab Police on Aug. 12, 2021, in which a man, later identified as Brian Landry, assaulted a woman named Gabby Petitot. (Michael Lewis/Fox News Digital)
He committed suicide at Myackahatchee Creek Ecological Park along the road, but a storm flooded the marsh and it took authorities five weeks to find his body.
After the waters receded, the parents, the FBI, and local police returned to search the park on October 20, 2021.
Her father, Christopher Landry, came across a waterproof bag containing a handwritten confession in the grass near her remains.
Gaby Petitot, 22, of Long Island, New York, was reported missing by her family on Saturday, September 11, 2021, after she and her fiance went on a cross-country road trip together in early July and returned home alone. (Steve Pettit)
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“I took her life,” the killer wrote, “I thought it was her wish and the merciful thing to do, but now I realise all the mistakes I made. I was in a state of panic and shock.”
The Pettits also filed a lawsuit against Landry’s estate over her death, and settled a separate lawsuit against Landry’s parents and their lawyer, Steve Bertolino.
“Given the time limit and Brian’s actions a few weeks later, I don’t think the officers can be held responsible,” he said Friday.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
