Will we ever know what happened to Gabby Petito?
Barely 22 years old, this American dreaming of wide horizons left this summer to discover the vastness of the American West, driving a van with her companion, before mysteriously disappearing.
After weeks of questioning, his body was found a week ago in the state of Wyoming by police, who now evoke a "homicide".
An outcome hardly imaginable for those, many, who followed behind their screen, the adventures of this young couple on the move.
In previous weeks, the blonde with blue eyes, followed by more than a million subscribers, appeared during her road trip on social networks, walking the sand dunes or tasting the waters clear of the American canyons.
Dozens of pictures with polished aesthetics, like so many ridiculous traces of his last days.
Read alsoDisappearance of Gabby Petito: the affair that fascinates America in six dates
The trip, started at the end of July under the objectives, was to last four months.
But it is ultimately alone that her fiancé, Brian Laundrie returns to their Florida home on September 1, refusing to say what happened to his girlfriend.
Ten days later, the family of the young woman reports her disappearance.
Because the influencer has not given any sign of life since August 30, the day when her cell phone sends a last text to her mother, informing her that she has "no network in Yosemite", a Californian park.
All eyes then turn quite naturally to Brian Laundrie, the last to see the American alive.
But the young man will remain curiously silent.
"All the ingredients for the tragedy are there"
The suspicions around his role are heightened after the publication of a video shot on August 12 by the police, during an intervention with the couple.
In this short sequence, Gabby Petito appears there in tears, after a marital dispute.
"She gets annoyed sometimes," Brian Laundrie assured officers, explaining that they had had a dispute, nothing more.
Since his return, the young man's attitude has intrigued.
He refuses to answer questions from the police ... even before disappearing, two weeks after his return to Florida.
Deemed "worthy of interest for the investigation" by the authorities, Brian is now the subject of an arrest warrant for having used between August 30 and September 1 the bank card of his late fiancée.
If the investigation progresses, the pieces of the puzzle are still far from being assembled.
And the media enthusiasm around the young woman continues to grow, reaching beyond American borders.
"The affair fascinates because all the ingredients of the tragedy are there: a young couple, seeming well in all respects who go on a trip as for a honeymoon, a tragedy which occurs, gray areas which persist ..." , decrypts Marlène Coulomb-Gully, professor, media specialist.
A point of view shared on the other side of the Atlantic.
“America is obsessed with crime cases.
Just turn on Netflix or any other platform and you will be bombarded with documentaries and detective mini-series.
This case is therefore no exception, ”adds Zach Sommers, an American sociologist.
A mountain of speculation on the networks
Since the disappearance of the young traveler and the identification of her body, Internet users scour the couple's social networks in search of answers.
A mountain of more or less inspired speculation is shared every day on Facebook groups, TikTok posts and through YouTube videos.
Communities of amateur investigators expose their theories, retrace the couple's journey, point out possible accomplices.
Thousands of looks on the lookout for the slightest clue and which in turn feed the media enthusiasm.
“This way of telling his trip on the networks and making a story necessarily engages the public.
The story is akin to a fiction that would stand before our eyes, ”notes Anne Sweet, professor at the Sorbonne and specialist in media studies.
But the unprecedented echo around Gabby even pushes some editorial staff to question the treatment of the case. Among them, Borzou Daragahi, American journalist and correspondent for The Independent who says he is "troubled" by the extent that the media give to this news item, "to the detriment of other important stories". "It worries me to see that a large part of the newspapers seem to take pleasure in flattering the lowest instincts of their public," he regrets.
For the reporter as for a part of the profession, this runaway is above all the illustration of a pervasive trend in the United States, popularized under the term “missing white woman syndrome”.
According to this theory, white, young, and upper-middle-class women would receive more media attention than non-white, social-class men or women.
A media bias that the young Gabby would not have escaped.
Proof that this difference in treatment appeals to the family of Daniel Robinson, a young 24-year-old black American who disappeared in Arizona for three months, deplores that his case has not had the same media impact as that of the young traveler.
Disappearances passed over in silence
And this example would be far from being an isolated case.
According to the New York Times, more than 700 Native Americans disappeared in the state of Wyoming - where Gabby died - between 2011 and 2020 ... without benefiting from a quarter of its media coverage.
“That we observe a greater media coverage of white people than blacks and Latinos is not surprising!
The company is crossed by relations of domination, and the editorial staff are only a reflection of it, ”insists Marlène Coulomb-Gully.
As the circumstances surrounding Gabby's death have not been clarified, the case could still monopolize media attention in the coming weeks.
The official cause of the traveler's death remains unknown, as do the reasons that prompted Brian Laundrie to flee.