Gabby Petito’s family traveled to Wyoming to pick up her remains

More than a month after her body were discovered in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest, Petito’s family traveled to Wyoming to receive her remains and prepare to lay to rest the young woman whose death has drawn intense interest while sparking conversations about the large number of missing persons cases each year — and why others don’t get as much attention.

Blue had made an initial ruling that Petito, who did not return from a summer road trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie, died by homicide. On Tuesday, he elaborated to say her death was caused by manual strangulation and that he believes she was strangled by a human being.

Photos posted by the family on Twitter show them in Wyoming, honoring Petito amid the beautiful scenery she took in during the final days of her life.

“I just, I hope that she didn’t suffer and that she wasn’t in any pain. That she was in a place that she wanted to be, looking at the beautiful mountains,” her mother, Nichole Schmidt, told 60 Minutes Australia.

Tension and conflict in her final weeks

The investigation into who killed Petito and what happened leading up to her death is ongoing, with many more questions still unanswered.

Petito had been traveling with Laundrie in a van across the US for much of the summer. But when he returned to the home they lived in with his parents in Northport, Florida, she was not with him.

Shortly after Petito’s parents reported her missing, Laundrie disappeared. Authorities are still searching for him, though he does not face charges in her death.

And Petito’s parents are eager for him to be found.

“We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl,” the caller said. “Then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off.”

CNN obtained dispatch audio recordings from the Grand County Sheriff’s office last month that shed more light on what Moab police were told about “some sort of altercation.”

On August 27, a witness observed a “commotion” as Petito and Laundrie were leaving the Merry Piglets Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming — one of the last reported sightings of Petito before her death.

Petito was in tears and Laundrie was visibly angry, going into and out of the restaurant several times, showing anger toward the staff around the hostess stand, the witness Nina Angelo said.

Angelo told CNN she did not see any violence or physical altercation between Petito and Laundrie.

That day, an “odd text” from Petito worried her mother that something was wrong, according to a police affidavit for a search warrant for an external hard drive found in the couple’s van.

“Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls,” the message read, according to the affidavit. Stan was a reference to Petito’s grandfather, who her mother said Petito never referred to that way, according to a police affidavit.

Petito called her mom regularly, and those conversations appeared to reveal “more and more tension” in Petito’s relationship, according to the affidavit.

The search for Laundrie

Investigators said Laundrie’s parents told them on September 17 he had left home days earlier and was headed to the nearby Carlton Reserve — sparking a search of the nature reserve’s 25,000 acres. Initially, his parents said he left on September 14, but Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino later said, “We now believe the day Brian left to hike in the preserve was Monday, September 13.”

In a statement , Laundrie’s family attorney Steve Bertolino said Laundrie had used a debit card that belonged to Petito but noted he was not a suspect in her death.