$50M Gabby Petito Lawsuit In Utah: 'She Would Have Been Alive Today'

MOAB, UT — The parents of Gabby Petito filed a $50 million lawsuit against Moab City Police claiming its officers could have saved her life had they followed their own protocols during a traffic stop spurred by a domestic violence incident just weeks before her tragic death.

In the summer of 2021, the 23-year-old Petito, who grew up in Blue Point, and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, had been traveling in her van across the country when she lost contact with her family. Her mother, Nichole Schmidt, reported her missing Sept. 11, 2021.

He then drove her van to his parents' house in Florida, where they had been living. Multiple law enforcement agencies across the country undertook a massive investigation into her disappearance, while Laundrie refused to speak with them.

Laundrie later drove to a Florida swamp, where he shot himself. He left his confession in his notebook, claiming he strangled her out of mercy after she fell into a ravine.

Petito's remains were found Sept. 19, 2021.

Weeks before her death, Petito and Laundrie were involved in a domestic violence incident in Utah, which was documented on bodycam during a traffic stop by Moab City Police. A 911 caller reported Laundrie slapped Petito on Main Street, but when the pair were pulled over down the road, Petito admitted she slapped Laundrie.

Police involved in the traffic stop labeled Petito the aggressor, but decided not to charge her in the incident and only separated the pair for the night, placing Laundrie in a hotel funded by a domestic violence advocacy group.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday morning, Petito's family attorneys claim the officers should have enforced the state's laws, and it would have saved Petito's life. Attorney James McConkie told reporters at a news conference that the "signs and symptoms" of domestic violence were present during the traffic stop.

"Intimate partner violence is an insidious problem in our society because the signs and the symptoms to a layperson don't seem threatening, and they're often hidden as they go and recognize all the signs and symptoms were present when the police interviewed Gabby and Mr. Laundrie in Moab," he said. "And all these signs and symptoms are not recognized by members of the general public. They are recognized by police officers who are trained to stop and intervene in these kinds of situations."

"Many times they are the last stop on a course of conduct that can lead to the signs and symptoms that they were not acted upon, even though Utah law required it," he said. "Domestic violence is a poison, a silent killer, that could very well affect our own lives."

Petito's family wants to emphasize that "the purpose of the lawsuit is to honor Gabby's legacy by demanding accountability and working for change in the system to protect victims of domestic abuse and violence, and to prevent such tragedies in the future," McConkie said.

Attorney Dick Baldwin said there are a couple of categories of negligence, including that the police did not handle the case properly because they failed to recognize Gabby was the victim with the tell-tale signs of domestic abuse. They also manipulated the law, intentionally seeking out a loophole allowing them to avoid enforcing a discretionary law, he said.

The department itself did not properly train its officers on how to identify victims and aggressors, and it failed to properly screen applicants for police officers as new hires.

In a statement provided to Patch by Moab City spokeswoman Lisa Church, officials called Petito's death in Wyoming "a terrible tragedy," adding, we feel profound sympathy for the Petito and Schmidt families and the painful loss they have endured."

They go on to say that at the same time, "it is clear" the police department's officers "are not responsible" for her" eventual murder."

"Ms. Petito is believed to have died in Wyoming in late August 2021, more than two weeks after she and Brian Laundrie visited Moab and interacted with Moab City Police," the statement continues. "At that time, our officers acted with kindness, respect, and empathy toward Ms. Petito."

"The attorneys for the Petito family seem to suggest that somehow our officers could see into the future based on this single interaction," the statement read. "In truth, on Aug. 12, no one could have predicted the tragedy that would occur weeks later and hundreds of miles away, and the City of Moab will ardently defend against this lawsuit.

Attorney Brian Stewart said the legal team has received information from witnesses that the senior officer in the traffic stop, Detective Eric Pratt, then a police officer, was a domestic abuser himself and "misused authority and threats of violence to control and intimidate sexual partners."

He said that made it clear why Pratt was "fundamentally biased in his approach to the investigation, identifying with Gabby's abuser, ignoring the victim and her injuries and intentionally looking for loopholes to get around the requirements of Utah law, and his duty, based upon what we have learned from multiple sources."

Stewart went on to say Pratt has "a history of pervasive professional and sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment and intimate partner violence, and was unfit and unsafe to be a police officer."

"We hope they will do that investigation now and take appropriate action," he said.

Utah's Legislature "foresaw the risk of injury and death that happened in this case, as they wrote the statute in such a way that they gave responsibility to intervene to police officers to enforce the law as written," and Pratt "understood that," Stewart said.

"Gabby's death was foreseeable and preventable," he said, adding, that "in a chilling description of Gabby's life-threatening situation and a stunning self-indictment of his own decision to find a loophole to avoid enforcing the law," Pratt said at the scene the law was there to protect victims, but noted how they often do not want their abuser charged, and the situation ends up worsening before they're ultimately killed.

"Nevertheless, Pratt intentionally chose not to follow the statute and even stated, 'I don't care if we use the actual letter of the law,'" he said. "We believe that Gabby would be alive today, if he had done his job to enforce the laws written and protect Gabby that day."

Church declined to comment when contacted for comment about the allegations made against Pratt, saying "only that neither the City of Moab, nor anyone from the police department will be providing any other comments or interviews about the matter at this time."

Petito's father, Joseph Petito, said that the criminal justice system has to change. He and Petito's other three parents, including her mother, Nichole, stepmother, Tara, and stepfather, Jim Schmidt, did not want to be at the news conference.

"We would give it up in a second if she was back," he said.

A tearful Nichole Schmidt told reporters the family is broken over Petito's death.

"We miss her so much," she said. "But we saw it as an opportunity to help other families. Again, I would reiterate that we'd have her back in a heartbeat because she is what's important."

Schmidt said that the lawsuit needs to bring justice.

"There are laws put in place to protect victims, and those laws were not followed, and we don't want this to happen to anybody else and it keeps on happening," she said. "They know it keeps happening, so we just want to stop it."

Jim Schmidt noted Petito's story resonated with people across the globe.

"I guess they saw her in themselves and recognized the potential situation that they were in as being bad," he said.

In the last year that it is up-and-running, The Gabby Petito Foundation has partnered with the National Domestic Violence Hotline by highlighting a link to the phone number where victims can get help 24/7. Within the first two months, the hotline had received 350 referrals from the website and the people are now being helped.

"For us, that was monumental to hear that," he said, adding, "In just a short time, that many people were impacted."

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This is a developing story. Check back for updates.