To think the Gabby Petito bodycam footage is beyond distressing

[Tricho]

Just watching this on netflix

The bodycam footage of her is one of the hardest things I've watched, an utterly terrified and distraught sweet, sweet girl

How her mother watched it I'll never know, I was sobbing.

@CherryPopShowerGel it was this:

It doesn't matter what we do to try and support his spouse to leave, nothing makes any kind of difference. In fact when we've tried, she tends to turn on us and make us the problem for meddling, defend him, tell him what we're doing/saying, and then they close ranks and he abuses us

By saying this with no other caveats, you are paying into the victim blaming mode. You are allowing other people to read this and think 'oh well nothing will make a difference so no point in doing anything'. You are allowing the 'with hindsight' argument to continue . I am sure you don;t mean to, but it is NOT TRUE that nothing we do will make a difference. While you percive that to be the case, what you are actually doing for your sister in law is showing her that she is loved and cared for, that she can make a change. That is an amazing thing to do for someone. but by framing it in the way you did, you and the other poster who also said nothing they do makes a difference, you are allowing others to think there is no point trying. Instead of saying 'nothing I do makes a difference you could maybe reframe it as;

My brother is in a physically, emotionally abusive relationship too. He is the abuser. I am continuing to provide as much love and support to her as possible. She is not able to leave yet, and the abuse is so bad that he manages to make her think that she should stay with him. This is what abusers do, and he is trying to isolate her and then abuse us to keep us away. I won't give up though, and I will continue to be there for her if and when she is ready to leave.

I'll add my own experience here.

My older male sibling is abusive and I was subject to emotional abuse, manipulation, threats, intimidation and worse when I was a young child. He's either narcissistic or sociopathic. He boots his pets.

My mum is coercive, narcissistic at least.

My ex is I believe narcissistic but I'm not sure about capacity for worse.

My teen is ND and displays behaviours that are reminiscent of the manipulation and gaslighting I have experienced at the hands of my family. Wonderful.

I am well educated, intelligent and I like to think no wet lettuce. Sadly, I have been a people pleaser. I feel I'm pretty compassionate to my detriment.

Not one single person is or was close enough to me to have any idea at all that this situation above is my reality. I had NO idea at all it was as dysfunctional as it is. Rather, I probably look like the abuser when I ( like Gabby did), have broken down or lost it and exploded in reaction. One time screaming you cunt at sibling aftee another load of horrible behaviour. And they all remain calm and composed and we have a look, she's crazy scenario unfolding.

It has taken me speaking to the same counsellor for 15 years. 15 years! Only now am I like ' jesus fucking wept, I am and always have been surrounded by abusers. I am not the problem. I had no idea '. And yes, another previous professional earning well etc etc.

How on earth do you help a woman out of this shitty mess. I even saw one counsellor one time who downplayed things ref what I said about treatment by family. I have a friend now who still says oh all family have their struggles. Arggghhhh. No.

Anyway, only with distance can you see it properly and you need so much dedicated support. It seems way beyond what these cops are capable of. Especially ' my wife has anxiety ' officer. He's probably the cause of that anxiety, I see you officer twat 🖕.

Wouldn't it be good if they covered this off in school/ PHSE. It's the biggest problem I see coming through the next generation more than ever tbh.

Her poor mum. It's possible they don't even understand this themselves so she wouldn't have seen the signs either.

Just to add - my counsellor dropped in the fact my family are coercive probably about 8 or more years ago. I couldn't see it.

Thanks for the reply and for confirming I didn't say that.

Unfortunately, I cannot support her. She knows I'm here if she ever needs anything, but I had to go no contact with both of them due to their response to me having to involve social services. I have lost a massive chunk of my family due to my brother's domestic violence. At a certain point, when you've tried absolutely everything, it's okay to protect yourself, look after yourself, step away from the drama triangle and accept that until/unless they're ready to make a change, and capable, it's a situation I have no influence on.

It's been 10yr since the last contact and I continue to have horrific nightmares about him every week, sometimes multiple times. Despite plenty of therapy. The ripples throughout the family and community from domestic abuse are unreal.

@CherryPopShowerGel I think someone can be both a victim and possibly act like what we'd call a flying monkey ( even if they are not of the same ilk as the perpetrators).

The victim ( his partner) is understandably aligned to him atm and that means your mental wellbeing is at risk because of what he could then bring your way as punishment for interfering.

I have gone NC with a sibling. I have had to detach significantly from nephews. That has been incredibly tough. I love them and miss them. It's not their fault but they operate slightly like flying monkeys even though they might not meet the complete definition.

You can't help at all in this case because you're just too close. And I also understand the slight bitterness and resentment because in trying to help it only makes things worse for you. You're also a victim to the same guy.

Sometimes you need someone totally detached who has no risk of being impacted by the manipulation or resultant punishment. This is just way beyond the Police isn't it really.

I hope for greater awareness. I think that's happening. We all talk more about behaviour that's always been there but now we have appropriate language. The narcissistic and sociopathic people have always been there since time bgan. We just didn't realise what these terrors were, we didn't have the language to understand and name the personality types and maybe we hadn't fully reached an understanding to fully analyse it until recently. That's something at least.

Oh my goodness, I was so angry when I saw him interviewing her. There seemed to be 2 police officers, 1 who seemed pretty reasonable and explained to her that she wasn't in trouble, and he was just taking her to the car so she could sit in the air conditioning. And then the other one, who said "what happened?" [she started to answer but he interrupted her and said] "I see you have scratches on your face..." [she started to answer but then he interrupted her and said] "I see you have a mark on your arm, is that a recent mark?" [she started to answer but he interrupted her] and then he started talking down to her and making her think it was her own fault. The only time he was prepared to let her speak was when she was prepared to say it was her own fault - and she was so upset, and questioning herself (which any normal person does) that she said it was her fault and he was too much of a dumb-a55 misogynist to actually listen and observe body language.

I admit when I first saw the footage at the beginning of the documentary my own internal misogyny came into play (why do we women do that?!) and I thought she was just a crazy, annoying blond. So I get how they may have thought that. But what you don't do when someone is that upset is just send them off by themselves into the wilderness and send their partner to a domestic violence hotel. She clearly needed someone to talk to, even if she was a mentalist (which I don't think she was). I just cannot get over how idiotic american policemen seem to be. If there had been a woman police officer there, then she would have noticed the signs and I hope she would have found someone for Gabby to talk to. It's a systemic and institutional failure which means that Gabby's life wasn't saved. I just can't believe how misogynistic they were. My mind is absolutely blown.

She said she didn't know how she got the bruises? Oh well, that's clearly a sign of an abuser. There is a report of him slapping her, he has a few scratches on his face, she has marks on her face that "looks like she's been hit" and a massive great big bruise on her arm, but she can't remember how she got it. Of course. She probably ran into a tree and the tree grabbed her arm and caused a bruise. Classic abuser.

Sorry for being annoyed, but my belief is just beyond beggared about how the police treated her.

Piss poor policing but I can't see how any possible action they could have taken would have prevented Gaby's murder. When they suggested the two were separated overnight she cried and said 'no, we're a team'.

Clearly she was controlled and brainwashed but as an adult she is allowed to make her own decisions. She decided not to take the van and leave, and when she phoned her mum later her mum asked her to come home but she said no. At that point in the trip, she still wanted to stay with him.

She was interviewed by a female police officer, it's in the documentary. The female takes exactly the same approach as the other officers.

I didn't find it a particularly difficult watch, though of course it's incredibly sad.
The police didn't handle it brilliantly but nothing they did could have changed the outcome at that point. And contrary to what some posters on here have said, I'm pretty sure they DID allow her to call mum.

Not only was her murder exceptionally sad, but also how she lived her life behind a camera lens. The tension between them was clearly at boiling point by the end of the road trip (NOT an excuse, I know).

She was a beautiful soul and it's really hard not to hate men.

@MorrisZapp I have to agree, nothing the police could have done could make a difference. The only way they could have pursued a charge against him would be to presume her to be a liar because she said she was at fault. Is that really what we want, a world where a woman is not believed??

They seem to have forgotten the witness story about the slap when they interviewed her and took only what they saw face to face, maybe that's a policy, I dont know but it surprised me. Clearly they made mistakes but it didn't feel like they dismissed it too easily, they had a chat about what to do. It's interesting the female officer said she would rather be in trouble for acting on something wrongly, than failing to act, but I wasn't sure if she meant arresting him or her. For sure one guy was biased talking about his own domestic situation, he obviously related to Brian and was blinded by that.