MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Gabby Petito disappearance stirs up infamous Donna Spangler death at Grand Canyon

Of the many online theories being spun about what could have happened, one popular notion is that Laundrie pushed Petito off some cliff

It is not yet known whether missing vlogger Gabby Petito is dead or alive, and the police are treating her case as a missing person case rather than a homicide. However, people on social media platforms are already comparing it to the murder of Donna Spangler, who was pushed off the Grand Canyon by her husband. 

Petito and her fiance Brian Laundrie had set out on a 'van life' adventure earlier in the summer, documenting their tour of national parks on Petito's new YouTube channel and Instagram. Laundrie, 23, returned to his parent's home in North Port, Florida on September 1 with the van but without Petito. Petito’s family reported her missing on September 11 after losing contact with her for several days. Laundrie has since lawyered up, refused to cooperate with investigators and has been branded "person of interest" in Petito's disappearance. And now, he has gone missing too.

READ MORE

Gabby Petito broke off engagement with Brian Laundrie before trip, says mom

Rose Davis: Gabby Petito's best friend says 'controlling' Brian Laundrie had ‘jealousy issues’

Of the many online theories being spun about what could have happened, one popular notion is that Laundrie pushed Petito off some cliff. "Glad to see in writing that Brian #Laundrie is a 'person of interest' in disappearance of 22-year-old Gabby #Petito. We do NOT want to say out loud what we're thinking. However, we have an extremely good idea what Laundrie did to Gabby - just not where he put her or pushed her," one of the users said, while another wrote, "There’s my theory that no one asked for: gabby petito and her bf got into a bad argument and he either m*rdered her and dumped her body somewhere or simply pushed her off of a cliff." A third commented, "I can’t stop thinking about the gabby petito case ..I think he left her in the middle of nowhere or pushed her off a cliff … his silence & disappearance is evidence enough #WhereIsGabbyPetito #WhereIsBrianLaundrie."

Donna Spangler's murder

While the users did not mention Donna Spangler's case, the imagined circumstances of what happened to Petito does bring to mind the 1993 murder of Robert Spangler's third wife. Donna, an active aerobics instructor with five grown children and several grandchildren from a previous marriage, did not share Robert's love of hiking due to her fear of heights. This led to marital problems. In April 1993, they backpacked in Grand Canyon hoping to save their marriage.

It was an Easter Sunday when Donna, 59, and Robert, 60, decided to take a picture on top of the Grand Canyon. Initially, he told the authorities, “I positioned Donna and turned to mount the camera on a rock for an automatic picture of us together. I heard a small sound from Donna and turned and she was gone,” he explained. Rangers located the body approximately 160 feet below the trail. Although the death was ruled an accident, some speculated that Spangler had given his wife a “Grand Canyon divorce."

After this, Robert played the role of a grieving husband perfectly, even appearing on a number of TV programs to discuss his wife's "accidental" death and explaining the dangers of hiking in the Grand Canyon. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2000, Robert confessed to murdering Donna, explaining how he masterminded the Grand Canyon plan and pushed his third wife over the edge while she was facing him. He also went on to confess killing his first wife and two teenage children in order to be with another woman with whom he had fallen in love with. 

Trouble in paradise?

Just like Robert Spangler had a temper and his marriage with Donna was falling apart before he killed her, Petito and Laundrie, too were facing issues in their relationship before she went missing. Gabby Petito’s best friend, Rose Davis, has accused Brian Laundrie of being a jealous and controlling type of person, in contrast to what the pair’s other friends and acquaintances had earlier claimed.

Davis alleged that Brian was such a control freak that he had once taken away Gabby’s ID so that she could not meet up with her at a bar. "He's got these jealousy issues and he struggles from what Gabby called these ‘episodes,’ where he would hear things and hear voices and wouldn't sleep. Gabby had to stay at my house a bunch of times because she just needed a breather and didn't want to go home to him," she said.

Speaking with the Daily Mail, after Petito went missing, the vlogger's mother, Nicole Schmidt said that the couple, who had been together for a little over two years and were engaged, decided to call off the engagement and go back to just dating — she said they felt they were too young for marriage. “I think they kind of put that on hold just because they felt it was a little fast. They were excited at first, but then they were like, 'let's just wait, we're very young'. So they were really just boyfriend and girlfriend,” she said. “They went to high school together. They were friends. They got back in touch and started dating,” she said, adding, “Maybe the relationship wasn't what I thought.”

A month before Petito was officially reported missing, police were called to investigate an incident involving the couple exchanging blows. Moab police officers were called to a co-op after a complaint about a “domestic problem” was filed on August 12 when a witness saw the couple get into an argument. Police said they spoke with Petito and Laundrie, who told officers that Laundrie had tried to “create distance” after the argument by telling Petito to go take a walk and calm down. Police said Petito did not want to be separated from Laundrie and started slapping him, which led to Laundrie grabbing her face, pushing her back, and locking her out of the car. As per the incident report, “no one reported that the male struck the female, both the male and the female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn’t wish to see anyone charged with a crime.”