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Is Gabby Petito in Puerto Rico? Internet sleuths scan her hiking app to check trail

Petito, 22, has been missing for over a fortnight after embarking on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend Laundrie, 23

As authorities turn over every rock to find Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, concerned observers are doing their bit to help locate their whereabouts. Several theories inundated social media after data from hiking app AllTrails showed Petito's last location to be in Puerto Rico.

Petito, 22, has been missing for over a fortnight after embarking on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend Laundrie, 23, who returned home without her and refused to cooperate with the police. Petito last texted her mom that she was at Yosemite, 800 miles away in California, on August 30 mentioning that there was a lack of signal. The latest update on September 16 indicated that the van she and her boyfriend used was last seen at Jenny Lake in Grand Teton national park on August 25, after which she has not been heard of. It was later reported that Laundrie, officially a "person of interest" in the case, had suddenly disappeared from his home on September 12.  

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Social media tried to decode Petito's whereabouts, hoping to contribute to the search efforts. Her account on the hiking app AllTrails showed a geotagged location in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

“Can’t sleep because all I can think about is the [Gabby Petito] case,” one user tweeted. “Now stalking her AllTrails account, assuming it’s really hers. Why is it saying Puerto Rico?” In a follow-up tweet, the user wrote, “Do we think Brian Laundrie has her phone and fled to Puerto Rico? It’s easy from Florida, but wouldn’t the airport notify anyone?”

"Could it be #GABBYPETITO cropped out her favorite hat because she didn’t wanna be seen with it on in Puerto Rico? #BrianLaundrie is this far-fetched now?" another added. "Cops need to be looking for #GABBYPETITO in Puerto Rico. sounds like a nice title for a song too wonder if that’s how they came up with the location to run off to. Can’t call gabby a suspect in these murders if she’s “missing” and possibly presumed dead right?" a comment read.

"All Trails app shows #gabbyPetito in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Wonder who is doing this. This was set up in May 2021. #Gabby," a user observed. "Look I’m not saying something bad DIDN’T happen to #gabbypetito but there’s no evidence yet that it did and certainly nothing to say that #BrianLaundrie was involved if it did. For all we know she got fed up and took off to Puerto Rico," another wrote.
 

Some wondered whether it was Laundrie who had fled to Puerto Rico with Petito's phone and urged police to check airport cameras. "Anyone else thinks that #BL escaped to Puerto Rico bc #gabbypetito phone picked up that as the last location?" one tweeted. Another Twitter user shared a screenshot of direct flights from Tampa, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico. “Spirit Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Jet Blue — all offer flights from Tampa to San Juan, Puerto Rico,” the user pointed out. “Can their passenger manifests for the past few days be checked for Brian Laundrie?”

"Do we think #brianlaundrie has her phone and fled to Puerto Rico? It’s easy from Florida, but wouldn’t the airport notify anyone?" a user speculated.
 

Laundrie's family requested officers with the North Port Police Department to visit their Florida home on September 16, nearly a week into the search for Petito. They told the authorities that Brian had gone missing since September 12. "His family has reported that they have not seen Brian as of Tuesday," North Port Police Public Information Officer Josh Taylor told the New York Post.

More than 50 North Port police officers with the assistance of the FBI, conducted a vast search in the Carlton Reserve in the Sarasota area on Saturday, Sept 17. “His family says they believe he entered the area earlier this week," North Port police said as they scoured the area of about 25,000 acres. The search for Laundrie was called off until Sunday, Sept 19 due to darkness.