CNN tracks Gabby Petito's last steps 4:37
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Holly Thomas is a London-based writer and editor.
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(CNN) -
Human remains were found in Wyoming on Sunday that match the description of Gabby Petito, the blogger who spoke of her life in a van, who disappeared while taking a van trip across the country with her fiancé Brian Laundrie. and whose fate has sparked a growing digital frenzy.
On Tuesday, a tweet from the FBI field office in Denver confirmed that the remains found were those of Petito, whose disappearance was reported on September 11, and said that "the initial determination of the manner of death is homicide."
Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie: this is all we know about the case
A police affidavit, filed last week for a search warrant, indicated that before Petito's conversations with his mother disappeared, they appeared to reveal "increasing tension" between Petito and Laundrie. Last weekend, about 50 police officers from five local agencies and the FBI were searching for Laundrie, who has not been charged or named as a suspect, and has not been seen since Sept. 14.
All the elements of the disturbing circumstances surrounding Petito's disappearance and death have been analyzed on the internet and constantly commented on in the news in recent days. The couple's encounter with police on Aug. 12, in Utah, during which Petito described a fight between her and Laundrie that morning. The
tiktoker
who claimed that she and her boyfriend put Laundrie in their car on August 29, in Wyoming. The strange text message from Petito's phone, on August 30, that his family doubts was written by Gabby herself.
Everything has been reviewed over and over again, the public is obsessed with theories, the media is rushing to give out every new piece of information.
It seems impossible that something horrible could happen to a young woman whose life and relationship, documented on her beautiful Instagram account, seemed to be perfect.
The fact that it probably wasn't, and that the stories of most women who go missing remain untold, speaks to a darker truth about the dangers all women face every day.
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Gabby Petito case: what social networks do not reveal 6:19
A 2018 United Nations study of homicide found that of the 87,000 women intentionally murdered worldwide in 2017, 58% were killed by intimate partners or family members. More than a third of the women were killed by their current or former partner. According to UN Women, almost one in three women in the world over the age of 15 has been subjected to intimate partner violence, sexual violence outside of the couple or both at least once in her life, mostly by your current or former partner. Statistically, the most dangerous place for women is their own home.
However, although all women face the threat of violence from men, the measures taken by the authorities to protect them differ radically, especially according to their race. According to a January report by the state's Missing and Murdered Indigenous People's Task Force, at least 710 indigenous people, mostly girls, disappeared in Wyoming, where Petito disappeared, between 2011 and 2020.
A 2020 report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute revealed that the vast majority of the 2,306 cases of missing indigenous women and girls in the United States remain unsolved. Last year, Tammy Carpenter, a Native American mother whose daughter, Angela McConnell, was found shot to death with her boyfriend in Northern California in 2018, told reporters that she was upset when a law enforcement officer, Not a Native American, he was callous when questioned about her daughter, implying that she came from a broken home where people were unemployed or involved in drugs. She told NBC News: "With today's society, people look and think, 'It's another dead Indian girl. Probably a drug addict. Homeless. Who cares?' That bothered me a lot. "
ANALYSIS |
All black women in America are fed up
The bias that the media shows in favor of covering the stories of disappearing white women is known as the "missing white woman" syndrome.
Factors such as race appear to determine not only the "newsworthiness" of a victim, but also how their disappearances are covered.
A recent report from the Center for Violence Policy found that, in 2018, black women were murdered by men at a rate almost three times higher than white women.
And yet their deaths are not reported in the press almost as regularly.
When they are, research shows that they are often portrayed negatively: as aggressive, promiscuous, living off the state. Coverage of white victims is often much more comprehensive, but also extremely sexist. Those women tend to be described as caring, kind. They are described as good "mothers" and "daughters."
Perhaps one of the most painful reasons why stories about attractive young white women seem to capture the public imagination so completely is the subconscious prejudice that bad things are not "destined" to happen to privileged people.
Security is one of the advantages to which one aspires to have a seemingly perfect life.
Well-to-do white people can generally assume that when they call the police, law enforcement will automatically be on their side and want to help them.
But this level of support is by no means a universal fact, and too often a function of racial privilege.
"Racial Bias Runs Deep" at America's Largest Banks, Study Finds
Part of the reason women of color are shamefully overlooked by law enforcement and the media when they go missing is that there is a degree to which their pain is viewed as part of the human experience itself. Too many members of society expect white women's lives to be easier and, due to institutional racism, they are treated as more deserving by the systems that are established when they are in danger. When white women disappear, it is a stronger public reminder that no woman, whatever her background, can take their safety for granted.
Stories like Gabby Petito's capture the imagination of all women because they highlight the fact that women are the ones most at risk from those they should be able to trust. We listen to true crime podcasts, review timelines on the news, look at seemingly happy and carefree photos of the victims, and wonder if we would be able to detect or intercept a threat near ourselves, a friend, a daughter, or a sister. .
Violence by men is never the responsibility of women, but when it is most likely to occur out of the sight of anyone who could prevent it, women are burdened with policing it themselves.
In the case of women, whose security is often taken even less seriously by some law enforcement officials and considered less newsworthy by many media outlets, this burden is reinforced long after their disappearance is reported or their disappearance is discovered. death.
Gabby petito