Secret Subject Swap - 🦇 Scary Story ☠️

Photos by Cora Leach and Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Welcome to October's Secret Subject Swap. 

Again 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  

Sit back, grab a cup and check them all out:

Baking In A Tornado
Wandering Web Designer
Climaxed
What TF Sarah 
Part-Time Working Hockey Mom

My subject is

Boo!

Tell us a scary story...

It was submitted by: Baking In A Tornado - thank you, Karen!

Once upon a time there was a girl who attended Bayport-Blue Point High School on Long Island, New York. Her name was Gabrielle Petitto. And that's exactly what she was. Petite. 5'3''. She had many friends, among them a boy called Brian Laundrie. After graduating in 2017, Gabby decided college was not for her. She'd rather have a day job working as a pharmacy technician and later as a waitress for a healthy bowls and smoothie café to make money, allowing her to travel and vlog about her adventures.

In 2019, she reconnected with her high school friend Brian, and things fell into place. She moved from Blue Point, NY, to North Port, FL to live with her boyfriend and his parents. 

In 2020 Gabby and Brian got engaged.

On June 17, 2021, they attended one of Gabby's brother's graduation ceremony on Long Island, and after that, they set out for a cross country road trip in a Ford Transit Van that they had converted into a camper. 

Gabby and Brian were supposed to end up in Oregon to meet with a friend around Halloween. 

Until then they had a grand time visiting the Chalk Pyramids in Kansas, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado ("fun" fact: Chris Watts and Nichol Kessingers also spent a weekend there, back in 2018) and all the gorgeous national parks, such as Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches - you name it, they visited and shared pictures and videos. 

I've been there myself, and I love the scenery! However, we only ever visited these places in fall. I couldn't imagine sleeping in a van (or a tent, for that matter) in July and August 100° plus temperatures. 

So far, so good, right?

We can't know when things began going downhill. Fact is, a witness called 911 on them on August 12. He saw the couple fighting in front of Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah. The caller claimed the young man slapped the girl.

However, as officers caught up with Gabby and Brian, they - especially he - downplayed the situation, even gave conflicting info such as she slapped him, and law enforcement had a hard time determining who was the bad guy. 

Instead of  pressing charges and sending one person to jail, they ended up separating the two for the night. Brian, who claimed not to have money for a hotel, was chauffeured to the Bowen Motel, where they keep a room available for domestic abuse victims. 

I looked it up on the map, and it's literally across the street from where we last stayed.

All the while, Gabby was left to stay in her van, which she was quite shocked about. 

Apparently she never drove it, even though it was hers. It also appeared that she was not comfortable at all to be on her own, ever, and I think Brian took advantage of her fear of abandonment. Whenever she was getting "worked up about the tiniest things" as he claimed, he would keep his distance by locking himself in the van and letting her bang on the windows, begging him not to leave without her. 

One can only imagine.

Looks like Brian came into some money later, because he flew home to North Port, FL on August 17, the reason being to help his Dad move his (Brian's) and Gabby's belongings out of a storage unit. According to Gabby's Mom, Brian's Dad offered to let them keep their stuff at his house, so they didn't have tot pay for the storage unit. 

If it was that expensive, why did they rent the storage in the first place? 

Also, which scenario costs more money: leaving their stuff in the storage unit for another 1 - 2 months vs Brian's roundtrip airfare plus Gabby's week long hotel stay?

On August 24 Brian rejoined Gabby at the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Salt Lake City, Utah, from where they left for Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

On August 25, Gabby and her Mom FaceTimed, as they did every couple of days. It was going to be their last time.

Two days later, Gabby and Brian were spotted at the Merry Piglets Restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming. Apparently Brian was fussing about the check with the waitress and demanded to speak to the manager. Gabby was mortified, left the building and cried on the sidewalk, while Brian apparently walked back in and out several time, not able to let it go. 

The witness that reported the incident to authorities, believed to have seen that Gabby went back in to try to get Brian to leave, and she apologised on his behalf, which probably made him more enraged.

From that day on, Gabby's Mom, Nicole, would only ever received odd text messages she thought could not be from her daughter. 

The last one on August 30 said "No service in Yosemite", which was strange for several reasons, one being that the couple had been strictly keeping up with their travel plans, which did not include Yosemite.

Just look at the map. If your ultimate destination is Oregon, are you moving on to Yellowstone (as was the plan, told by Gabby to her Mom), which takes less than two hours...

...or do you drive some 13 hours to Yosemite? And if they wanted to visit Yosemite (and other cool locations in California), wouldn't they have done so after Zion? They could have driven through the Death Valley?

To make the long story short, on September 1st, Brian returned to his parents' house in North Port, FL, driving Gabby's van, but without Gabby. Where was she? Why did he come home early and alone? He also seemed to have used Gabby's debit card, charing some 1,000 bucks.

Until today we don't know exactly what happened. 

Brian has a lawyer who advised him to invoke his 5th amendment right to shut his mouth and not say anything. 

It gets better.

On September 17, Roberta and Chris Laundrie (Brian's Mom and Dad) reported him missing. Apparently, Brian left their home three days earlier, leaving his cell phone and wallet behind.

He went on the run just in time before law enforcement discovered Gabby's remains at Spread Creek Dispersed Camping in Wyoming. The cause of death was determined to be a homicide.

In my humble opinion, his parents play a huge part in diverting police. Not only did they buy Brian valuable time, they also told them he likely went to the Carlton Reserve, home to alligators, black bears, rattlesnakes and other venomous snakes, coyotes, bobcats and panthers. 

Yay, the officers who have to search the 25,000 acres must be thrilled. So are probably the tax payers who are financing the entire operation.

There have been a couple potential Brian sightings. I hope they arrest him soon, and justice will be served.

How was that for a scary story? It included a skull, a skeleton, dark woods, missing people, dangerous animals, most probably screams and blood. And the perpetrator is ghosting himself. Boo!

What do you think went down?

Let me know below, and please, visit my fellow bloggers' posts. Happy Friday!