A new documentary about the disappearance of Gabby Petito details the hidden message some people were convinced she put in one of her final messages to her mum.
Petito, 22, was declared missing in September 2021 after embarking on a road trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie, who returned home to Florida without her.
Nichole Schmidt, Petito's mum, remained in frequent contact with her daughter throughout the trip, and on either 24 or 25 August, 2021 conducted what turned out to be her final FaceTime with her daughter, marking the last time she physically saw her.
A couple of days later, on 27 August, Schmidt received a text that didn't appear to fit with Petito's way of speaking. It read: "Can you help Stan I keep getting his voicemails and missed calls."
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Stan is the name of Petito's grandfather, but Paramount+'s new documentary,The Disappearance of Gabby Petito, notes it was unlike the 22-year-old to call him by his formal name.
Schmidt received just one text after 27 August, on 30 August. It read, "No service in Yosemite", and arrived at a time when Petito and Laundrie were thought to have been in Wyoming; not California, where Yosemite is located.
As an investigation into what happened to Petito got underway, the 'Stan' text was made public and prompted internet users to speculate about why she might have used her grandfather's name in her penultimate message.
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One of the theories presented in the documentary is that 'Stan' might actually have been an acronym, standing for 'Send The Authorities Now'. This theory suggested the text might have been a call for help from Petito after she realised she was in danger.
Schmidt recalled her reaction when all communication from Petito stopped, remembering that she started to text her daughter every day from 1 September but initially thought she must have been camping somewhere with no service.
As she got more desperate, Schmidt said her texts started to change, asking Petito to 'please get in touch'. In one message, she said she was 'going to call the park police' out of fear over the silence.
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Schmidt then realised she hadn't attempted to contact Laundrie, but upon doing so her message turned green, 'like it wasn't going through'. She attempted to text his mother, but again received no response.
It soon emerged that Laundrie had returned home to his parents' house, with Petito's van, but no Petito. He then went missing himself, and during attempts to track him down it emerged that Petito had been found dead in Wyoming.
In the documentary, former FBI Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer said 'the evidence from those text messages weren't in and of themselves enough to conduct a search warrant at the Laundrie home', but continued: "All the circumstances added together, involving the van arriving there, involving Brian Laundrie being there, involving [Petito] being gone and now found deceased, for all these reasons there was enough probable cause."
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About a month after Petito's remains were found, Laundrie was found dead in a Florida nature reserve. A notebook found in the same area revealed an admission that he had killed her, with a cause of death determining she had been strangled.
The Disappearance of Gabby Petito begins streaming on Paramount+ from 18 August.
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Topics: Gabby Petito, US News, Film and TV, Crime
Emily Brown