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In January 2022, the case involving the mysterious disappearance of 22-year-old Gabby Petito came to a conclusion when the FBI declared that all evidence indicated that Petito's fiance, Brian Laundrie, was the culprit.
Gabby Petito and Laundrie set out on a cross-country trip in June 2021, two months before Petito was reported missing. On September 19, 2021, Gabby's remains were found in a secluded area at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Petito's story will be explored in detail in the latest episode of CBS' true-crime series, 48 Hours. Titled Gabby Petito: The Untold Story, the episode will air on September 17, 2022, at 9 pm ET.
However, Gabby Petito's disappearance isn't the only one that has generated country-wide media attention. Over the years, the US has seen a string of other disappearances similar to Petito's. Here, we take a quick look at a few of them.
Kristin Smart, Sherri Papini, and five other disappearances like the case of Gabby Petito
1) Etan Patz
The disappearance of Etan Patz is one of the longest investigated missing-person cases in US history.
On May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz decided to walk by himself to the bus stop for the very first time. Alarms were raised when he did not return home from school that afternoon.
Upon further investigation, it was learned that Etan didn't make it to the bus stop, which was just two blocks away from his home. A picture of Etan was widely circulated and houses in the neighborhood were rigorously investigated, but to no avail.
Much like the Gabby Petito case, this incident also stirred a lot of media attention, especially towards the disappearance of children. The date of Etan's disappearance - May 25 - soon came to be observed as National Missing Children's Day. His case was also the basis on which the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was set up in 1984.
Etan's face was also the first to appear on a milk carton as part of the 'photo on a milk carton' campaign of the early 1980s, which aimed to publicize cases of missing children.
Nearly 40 years after Etan went missing, Pedro Hernandez was convicted of kidnapping and killing the child. In 1979, Pedro was just a teenager working on the path between Etan's home and the bus stop. Four decades later, in May 2012, he testified that he was responsible for Patz's disappearance and subsequent death. The court sentenced Hernandez to 25 years to life in prison.
2) Laci Peterson
On December 24, 2002, Laci Peterson, who was eight-months pregnant at the time, disappeared from her home. Her disappearance was reported by her husband Scott Peterson, who returned home from a fishing trip to find his wife missing.
Police began looking at Scott's statements and suspected his involvement in her disappearance when it was revealed that Scott was involved in an extra-marital affair with a woman named Amber Frey. On December 30, 2002, Frey informed authorities about their relationship and revealed that when she met Scott two weeks earlier, he had told her that he was a widower.
In March 2003, Laci and her child's remains were found in the San Francisco Bay area.
It was later ascertained that on Christmas Eve 2002, Scott Peterson allegedly dumped the bodies of his wife and child from his fishing boat. Scott was sentenced to a death penalty in 2004. However, in 2020, the original decision was overturned in favor of a life sentencing.
Much like the Gabby Petito case, this one also involved violence between domestic partners.
3) Kristin Smart
Kristin Smart, a 19-year-old college student at the California Polytechnic State University, went missing in the morning hours of May 25, 1996. The night before, Kristen had attended a party with two other friends. She was reportedly tipsy on her way back home and was offered help by three students, one of them being Paul Flores, who told the other two that he would drop Kristin to her dorm.
She was never seen again.
In 2002, Kristen was presumed dead. Three years later, in 2005, her parents filed a case against Flores, who was popularly believed to be the man behind the disappearance despite him claiming that he had parted ways with her that night.
In April 2020, an official search of Paul's apartment revealed several "items of interest." The following year, he and his father Ruben Flores were taken into custody based on suspicions of their involvement in Kristin's disappearance. Their trial began in July 2022.
Kristin Smart's disappearance is similar to that of Gabby Petito's in that both the victims were female and around the same age.
4) Natalee Holloway
As in Gabby Petito's case, the disappearance of Natalee Holloway also occurred while she was away traveling. Holloway disappeared during her class' high school graduation trip to Aruba. She was reported missing after she failed to make it for her flight back home from the trip.
She was last spotted interacting with some locals who were all arrested multiple times during the investigation. However, a lack of sufficient evidence resulted in them being released every time. The case remains unsolved even today and Natalee Holloway was declared legally dead in 2012.
5) Anne Marie Fahey
On June 27, 1996, Anne Marie Fahey went to dinner with Thomas Capano, a reputed American lawyer. She had been involved in a relationship with Capano for a significant amount of time by then.
She disappeared the morning after the dinner and Capano was named the prime suspect in her disappearance, since he was the last person who saw her, much like the case of Gabby Petito, who was last seen by her fiance.
More than a year later, Capano was arrested for allegedly killing Fahey and dumping her body in the Atlantic Ocean. Given the involvement of Capano, who was a reputed lawyer at the time, the case received wide media coverage and was popularly talked about.
Gerry, Capano's brother, was actively involved in helping him cover up the case and hide the evidence. After several discussions on capital punishment, the court decided to leave Capano with a life sentence. He was found dead in his jail on September 19, 2011. Medical examination revealed that he had died of a sudden cardiac arrest.
This disappearance is similar to that of the Gabby Petito case, in that it too involved the love-interest of the victim.
6) Lauren Spierer
Lauren Spierer was reported missing on June 3, 2011. Much like the Gabby Petito case, this one too was investigated for a long time. Lauren was 20 years old and was heavily intoxicated the night she disappeared.
The FBI and the police could not narrow down on prime suspects in the case. Lauren was presumed dead due to a lack of evidence regarding her whereabouts for a prolonged period. Repeated investigations and forensics failed to solve the mystery of her disappearance, although her parents filed lawsuits against three of her friends from Indiana University, where Lauren was a student.
All three lawsuits were later dismissed.
7) Sherri Papini
Having begun in 2016, the disappearance of Sherri Papini resurfaced all over the news recently due to a strange turn of events.
Papini first disappeared on November 2, 2016, but reappeared three weeks later on Thanksgiving Day. She initially claimed that her kidnappers held her at gunpoint and tortured her. She also produced marks on her own body to prove her statements.
However, in March 2022, Papini was arrested on charges of faking her own kidnapping to spend time with her ex-boyfriend. Subsequently, Papini agreed with the court's orders to compensate with a sum of $300,000 for all the resources that were employed to investigate the case.
While this disappearance was fabricated, and bears no obvious resemblance to that of the Gabby Petito case, it merits a mention in this list owing to its lengthy investigation.
The episode of 48 Hours that explores the disappearance of Gabby Petito will premiere on CBS on September 17, 2022.
