Yes, SMS messages are the default in the USA. The norm here is unlimited texting*, even on bare-bones plans, so there’s not as much of a need for other solutions. If all parties use Apple devices, the texts will (AFAIK) go through iMessage’s servers rather than the phone system, but I’m not sure to what extent the average user even perceives that as being a different process; for a plain old text, the only difference is that they’re blue instead of green.
*I don’t know what the situation elsewhere is now, but I believe there was a period where text messaging was relatively more expensive in other places.
I suppose I’m an “average user.” I am aware that Apple to Apple is different than Apple to non-Apple. But I don’t know or care why or how. The process on my end is identical.
Ah that makes sense then. Unlimited texting is not a general thing here, so for most people the tiny amount of data to send a WhatsApp or iMessage is cheaper than the cost of a carrier SMS.
I strongly suspect (but do not know) that she and/or Brian came from a sufficiently privileged background to provide them with enough of a cushion to confront the high cost of entry for van-living-as-basis for social media revenue stream.
Unless they were renting that van (and I’m pretty sure they weren’t, based on prior discussion about ownership and common use).
They were living presumably rent-free with his parents, and she’d been working in various restaurants for a few years (at least one article had some quotes from her former co-workers about how nice she was.) It’s not that hard to save up a decent chunk of change when you’re waiting tables and not paying rent. I lived pretty high on the hog my last year of high school with that setup and still saved some money for living expenses in college.
Details always matter. Agree with Bo one this one: FBI agents would be all over it in an interrogation. Asking about details is exactly how they catch people in their lies.
Sure, and I suppose some of it comes down to what constitutes a “privileged background.” The ability to rely on one’s parents for support, to the point that one can fairly early on accumulate and then withdraw savings, exit the work force, and assume the risk to “invest” in a sort of “independent enterprise” not unlike starting a small business (perhaps implicitly with the knowledge that if things don’t pan out, one can fall back on parental support and maybe hit the reset button) constitutes a non-zero level of privilege. One which, to be sure, I might have availed myself of had I, at a similar point in my life, been so-inclined.
Point being, I don’t imagine that this couple was staring down a double-barrel shotgun with homelessness in one chamber, and starvation in the other, if their social media gambit didn’t pay off. I suspect their worst case scenario (among likely scenarios short of murder, I mean) was “Damn, I guess we’re going to have to sell the van, go back living with our parents, and maybe get jobs. I’m a little worried my folks might make me to go to college as a condition of moving back in, though…”
Oh absolutely, I didn’t mean to dispute that they were privileged. (Or that I was!) I was just elaborating on how this could be made possible with family support that did not necessarily include the parents actually giving them any money.
I guess my overall point is that his trip back to Florida sort of closes one of the criticisms, which is: “How could he return to Florida in the van without Gabby, leaving her alone thousands of miles from home?”
Point of fact is that without a doubt, we know that he did exactly that during a time when she was alive and well. During that time, he did leave her the van, but she was “alone” thousands of miles from home for six days. Therefore, after knowing this fact, it is not a stretch to say that she was planning on flying home at a later date just like he did.
Further, in response to @Broomstick, Gabby says to the police in the DV video that she doesn’t “really” like to drive the van and wants to know where Laundrie’s hotel is located. I didn’t mean to suggest that she never or was incapable of driving the van. Given that, it is likely that if they wanted to separate, she would ask him to drive the van while she flew.
Further, given that she was “alone” for six days, I’m all but certain that every guy (and yes, it is always guys) tried to “offer” her “help.” She was young, free spirited, and naïve. She likely would have had a couple of beers or sat by the campfire with someone. And when Laundrie tells (what I believe is) a lie, he can give few or many details that can never be verified either way.
I agree that if he gives too many details or tries to weave a tight narrative, he will be caught, but “she mentioned some people she met and when I left she said she was going to go visit them before flying home” sounds plausible enough to me, given that she was already alone out there for six days.
And doing what with the van, which was in her name?
And yet they didn’t do that when he returned to Florida for a week. So if his story were that she was so reluctant to drive the van that she was going to fly back to Florida (without texting her folks that the van life was over) while he drove the van back, then it makes little sense that he flew back to Florida in mid-August and left her alone with the van she was so reluctant to drive. The FBI would want to know why SHE wasn’t the one to take the 8/17 flight to Florida to (supposedly) get stuff out of storage and get supplies.
And remember, the money saved on the storage unit would not have offset the cost of a flight.
I see some people in this thread making a distinction that others are not:
There’s whatever story that Brian Laundrie told his parents on September 1st to buy himself a week or so.
And very separately, there’s a theoretical “perfect story” that Brian Laundrie would have to tell the FBI to get them to somehow summarily clear his name. This “perfect story” almost certainly does not exist.
ISTM that some posters are presenting hypotheticals about (1) and others are thinking those posters mean (2) and “it wouldn’t work because the FBI would see right through it”. And so the FBI would, unquestionably – but Brian Laundrie’s parents aren’t FBI.
The current social media conspiracy theory is that the white rectangular firepit in the middle of the Laundries’ back garden is actually the secret entrance to an underground bunker, and some blurry movement in the earth, that was captured by video drone as Mother Laundrie worked the vegetable patch, was actually Brian’s hand reaching out from a hole in the ground, probably as he was passed some carrots or something.
Are they sure it’s not Saddam? I heard from somebody whose cousin said she knew a guy who assured her that Saddam is alive and living in the Laundries’ spider hole.
Look at all the details between your quote marks. That story isn’t as plausible as a turtle falling from the sky and cracking your windshield. This story has now been all over all media for weeks. “Go visit them where?” “How was she going to get there?” “When was she going to go there?” “Did you meet these people?” “When did she meet these people? And she was going to go visit them after having known for them for how long?”
Remember that his parents also have known her for more than a decade; they would see right thru your “plausible” story.
Well, remember I said how pissed off she was and told me to go back to Florida in the van? She wasn’t in a very chatty or friendly mood so she didn’t share all these details. The most I could get out of her was “Go fuck yourself” so I really don’t know much to help you. Sorry. She said she was going to spend a few days out there with her new friends, that’s all I know. She was all crazy, bro. I couldn’t wait to leave.
Again: I disagree that these stories are anywhere near plausible because his parents knew Gabby for years and years; she lived with them. You are describing actions completely out of character for this young woman; no one would believe it.
And if they did believe it, they would be concerned and not ignoring calls from her parents, who they have also known for years and years.
Yeah but never underestimate a parent’s ability to believe, against all evidence, that their baby boy is still good.
ETA: I say this having recently spoken to the mother of a domestic violence perpetrator. I represent the victim, who has been taking this man’s abuse for years and finally went to the police. Despite her bruises, despite witnesses confirming her story, despite child welfare services taking the kids away, despite the fact that my client still wants to reconcile with her abuser, the perp’s mother is adamant that it’s all lies. I wish I could say this was an aberration, but I’ve been doing this almost 6 years, and it’s not.
In the part of the Petito parents/step-parents interview with Dr Phil released today, there was some new info about the location the body was discovered.
So it doesn’t seem like there was a serious attempt to hide the body.
And now Laundrie’s parents are saying he left on Monday, September 13th, not Tuesday, September 14th, as they’d been saying.
“The Laundries were basing the date Brian left on their recollection of certain events,” Bertolino said Wednesday. “Upon further communication with the FBI and confirmation of the Mustang being at the Laundrie residence on Wednesday September 15, we now believe the day Brian left to hike in the preserve was Monday September 13.”
So it’s only after the FBi pressed them and told them the Mustang was at the Laundrie residence on the 15th that they suddenly “remembered” he left on Monday, not Tuesday. It seems odd to forget by Friday which day your son left and not remember until the FBI confronts you with evidence suggesting otherwise. We’re not talking which day the phone bill arrived.