# Van lifer goes missing on cross country trip with fiancee **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 13, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604 "2021-09-13T13:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/321 "2021-09-20T16:25:36Z")
Here’s some side info on this in our local news: [UWO student helping investigators after giving ride to Brian Laundrie](https://www.weau.com/2021/09/20/uwo-student-helping-gabby-petito-investigators-after-giving-ride-boyfriend/) ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/322 "2021-09-20T16:26:32Z")
Bingo. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/323 "2021-09-20T17:06:22Z")
I wondered about this at first. I think Laundrie wanted to abandon the van and hitchhike back to Florida, but there was a misunderstanding and he ended up taking the van back. Which simply made him look more suspicious. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/324 "2021-09-20T17:22:08Z")
A misunderstanding with whom? I don’t follow. I’m also confused by this (from the article Fluffy posted): > “He approached us asking us for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson, which we were going to Jackson that night. I said hop in. He hops in the back of my Jeep. We then proceeded to make small talk. Before he came into the car he offered to pay us like, $200 to give him a ride, like 10 miles. So that was kind of weird. He then told us he’s been camping for multiple days without his fiancée. He did say he had a fiancée, and that she was working on their social media page back at their van. In conversation, I brought up that we’re going to Jackson. He freaked out. He’s like ‘nope, I need to get out right now, you know, pull over.’ So we pulled over at the Jackson Dam. It’s not very far from Colter Bay.” So he asked for a ride to Jackson and then freaked out because the people giving him a ride were going to Jackson? ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/325 "2021-09-20T17:24:20Z")
In the video, she say that they mentioned Jackson Hole instead of Jackson and he asks to get out. Then she says Jackson and Jackson Hole are the same place. ETA: In the 2nd video of that link where she is pointing at a map. I think she misspoke in the first video. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/326 "2021-09-20T17:32:51Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > Yahoo news reported that the home is considered a crime scene, which confuses me. > > [Gabby Petito: Police remove Brian Laundrie’s parents and declare home crime scene](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/gabby-petito-police-shut-down-133720396.html) I’m not sure either. According to Florida statute, a parent is exempt from the law concerning being an accessory after the fact, so they can’t be basing it on that. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/327 "2021-09-20T17:38:59Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > He is almost certainly out of the country by now. Hiding in Mexico, some Caribbean island to the south of Florida maybe. I’m very certain he is nowhere near the nature preserve where his parents claimed he was. They have been planning his getaway for some time. Leaving the USA would be fraught with risk, though, in the sense that that is a very traceable thing. Your passport leaves a trail. The USA is a big, big place to hide in. If Laundrie has cash and shaves his beard he can vanish quite effectively. Aside from being immensely evil to do this, it’s also dumb as shit. A sufficiently resourceful person with parental support can evade capture for years, even in this day and age, but this is the sort of clever thinking that doesn’t look any further forward than a couple of weeks. Laundrie, if he is as I suspect on the lam with his parents’ dough, will be looking over his shoulder and never able to lead a normal life. Sooner or later he’ll be caught, even if it takes years, or decades. As heartbroken as his folks likely were that their son did something horrible, as protective as they naturally would be of him, the smart thing to do would be to say “son, we’ll get you a lawyer, but when they find Gabbie, and they will, maybe your lawyer needs to cut you a deal.” Maybe he could get a lesser charge, pay his debt to society, and someday get our of prison. But now they’ve blown it and his parents might go to jail too. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/328 "2021-09-20T17:43:03Z")
They may be seizing his computer. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/329 "2021-09-20T17:53:23Z")
For an example of someone who hid, [Alex Kelly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Kelly_(rapist)) fled rape and other charges and hid in Europe for seven years. He was apparently getting money from his parents. This was thirty years ago, though, and I really doubt it’s that easy to exist without a fake ID and other paperwork today. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/330 "2021-09-20T18:01:02Z")
The feds are going to watch his family’s every move and monitor every communication. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/331 "2021-09-20T18:07:13Z")
Yeah, that’s the thing - it’s an order of magnitude harder to hide now. More is traceable, the cops are wiser to such tricks, there’s cameras everywhere, communication is far better, it’s much harder to live off the grid. If you really want to be off the grid, you have to BE OFF THE GRID - be a forest hermit or literally sleep under bridges as a homeless person. Drifters can vanish, but that’s about as bad a life as prison. Bill James wrote in his book “The Man From The Train” that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, crime was not only higher than today, but probably INCREDIBLY high, and one of the reasons was that they did not have modern police capabilities in the sense we understand it today. Imagine how hard it would be to capture a murderer in, say, 1890. If you killed someone in Philadelphia and were not a complete idiot and had a few bucks, you could vanish. In 1890, there were no driver’s licenses, no photo ID, no credit cards, no background checks. If you hopped a few trains and showed up in San Francisco calling yourself by a different name, you might as well have flown to Mars. But since then getting away with crime has become increasingly difficult. Every little advance has made this sort of thing tougher; it would appear that in this case the victim’s body might well have been found because of people having cell phone camera evidence of the van’s location, a thing that would not have happened even 12, 15 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/332 "2021-09-20T18:23:49Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Bill James wrote in his book “The Man From The Train” that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, crime was not only higher than today, but probably INCREDIBLY high, and one of the reasons was that they did not have modern police capabilities in the sense we understand it today. Fascinating book. His premise was completely believable to me. And even into the early 20th c. it would have been quite easy to disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/333 "2021-09-20T18:29:37Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Or the crime might be “obstruction of justice”. Despite what cops may say, refusal to talk or cooperate is NOT obstruction or any other crime. It is a 5th Amendment right. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/334 "2021-09-20T18:31:46Z")
Yes but lying to an officer about a material fact as part of a lawful investigation is a felony. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/335 "2021-09-20T18:33:24Z")
Which is why you do not talk to the nice policeman. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/336 "2021-09-20T18:33:53Z")
True … but when did he lie? He lawyered up immediately. Incidentally another reason to never talk to police ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/337 "2021-09-20T18:34:17Z")
I’d like to point out that if (IF) he decided to flee Florida has a lot of coast and a lot of boats. Taking a boat trip would be the easiest way to leave. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/338 "2021-09-20T18:34:55Z")
I wasn’t saying he did; his family, however, might have ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/339 "2021-09-20T18:38:18Z")
I think we need to wait for Elmer J Fudd to return and tell us what he thinks the obstruction of justice is because I’m pretty sure the family has been mute as well. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604/340 "2021-09-20T18:53:35Z")
Deleting files on a computer or attempting to get rid of or destroy equipment can also be considered obstruction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-lifer-goes-missing-on-cross-country-trip-with-fiancee/950604.md?page=18)