Petito

The Petito case, which is still unfolding (her fiancé, with whom she’d been travelling, is believed to be in hiding) seemed like another instance of what the late journalist Gwen Ifill famously described as “missing white woman syndrome”: a hunger for stories about victims who look like Petito, to the exclusion of all others.

The Petitos sued the Laundries for emotional distress in connection with Gabby Petito’s death while traveling the Western United States with Brian Laundrie, her fiancé. Laundrie came home from the trip without Petito and disappeared several weeks later.