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Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, the parents of the late Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab City Police Department (MCPD) on Thursday claiming that its officers were negligent and “did not fully investigate” threats of domestic violence against the 22-year-old prior to her murder.
“The officers egregiously misinterpreted Gabby’s extreme emotional distress, seeing it as the cause of the domestic violence rather than its result,” wrote Petito and Schmidt’s attorneys, from Parker & McConkie law firm.
The $50 million lawsuit describes an incident before Gabby Petito’s death where police investigated violent interactions between the social media influencer and her fiance Brian Laundrie.
That investigation was “deeply flawed,” according to the family’s lawyers, and pegged Petito rather than Laundrie as the predominant aggressor after both parties physically harmed one another.
