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Gabby Petito disappearance: What is Yellowstone National Park's ‘zone of death’?

It is believed that Gabby Petito was headed to Yellowstone National Park, where she was supposed to meet one of her friends

Long Island woman Gabby Petito's sinister disappearance and the law enforcement nowhere getting close to finding her have given rise to a lot of conspiracy theories. Gabby Petito, 22, who was on a cross-country trip to Oregon with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, 23, lost contact with family suddenly and stopped posting to social media pages. Petito's last known location is believed to be in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming in late August, while Laundrie returned home to North Port, Florida on September 1 in the white Ford Transit van the couple was using. Laundrie was named 'a person of interest' in Gabby Petito's missing case after he refused to speak with the authorities about her whereabouts.

It is believed that Gabby Petito was headed to Yellowstone National Park, where she was supposed to meet one of her friends. The Yellowstone National Park is around 10 miles from Grand Teton National Park, which is Petito's last known location. According to Petito's friend, they "were planning for me to meet in Yellowstone after my birthday." The friend believed that the park was supposed to be Petito's next stop "at least when we planned it." A date for the meeting was not planned, but the friend said Petito was due to call her on August 29 to finalize plans and meet sometime in September. Until her disappearance, the trip to Yellowstone seemed more or less decided, with Petito telling another friend on August 27 via Snapchat she was heading for Yellowstone. The entire Yellowstone National Park falls under the federal judicial district of Wyoming, which includes an uninhabited small strip of land behind the Idaho state border now known as the 'zone of death'. 

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What is Yellowstone National Park's 'zone of death'?

Apparently, a glitch in the constitution might have made the 50-mile strip of uninhabited land near Yellowstone National Park the perfect place to commit a murder and get away with it. Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt published an academic paper titled 'The Perfect Crime' in 2005, which suggested that "there is a 50-square-mile swath of Idaho in which one might be able to commit felonies with impunity." According to the Sixth Amendment, all criminal prosecutions are required to be heard by a jury from the state and district where the crime was committed, and it is potentially impossible to try someone for murder in the 'zone of death' because there is no one to summon for a jury who lives in both the state of Idaho and the district of Wyoming. Also, never has a crime committed in the 'zone of death' been brought before the courts. 

'They MUST check the zone of death'

Conspiracy theorists on social media are 'hell bent' on conducting a search for the missing girl in the 'zone of death'. "They MUST check the zone of death, the area of Yellowstone where you can legally get away with murder. Why has no one mentioned this yet?! #GabbyPetito, " one person tweeted. Another user wrote, "#wheresgabby #GabbyPetito #police #MISSING There is a 50 mile zone of death in Wyoming where gabby and Brian we’re headed and mind you the argument they had and we’re split up by police in UTAH which is right on the way to Wyoming local authorities need to be looking there!" One tweet read, "The fact that Brian Laundrie went all the way back to FL in Gabby Petito's van and said nothing is what makes him suspicious. That and they were near Yellowstone's "Zone of Death" - 50 sq miles that no one has jurisdiction over and you can technically get away with murder."