The United States has no emergency alert broadcasting system when there is an immediate need to spread the world about missing persons between 18 and 64 years old. In this new case involving the homicide of Gabrielle Venora Petito, she left from New York, traveled to and through Utah, ending in the State of Wyoming. Her mother reported her missing after Gabby’s fiancé returned home to Florida without her.

Brian Laundrie, who was Gabrielle’s travel companion, was then reported missing by his parents on September 18, 2021. One couple, two missing persons, two involved states. One short one day after Brian’s disappearance, Gabrielle Petito was found in Wyoming. It would be more than a month later before Brian Laundrie was found in Florida. During these timeframes, dozens of adults were reported missing, some found deceased, some located alive, but most still missing. No quick alerts existed in the Gabby Petito case, so it took too many days to even narrow a location to search down. As it turns out, a couple who posted a video on the social media platform, YouTube, was a big source in helping find Gabby’s body in Wyoming.

The Red, White and Bafoons, a channel of van life bloggers, saw a posting on social media regarding Gabby Petito being missing, they quickly realizing they caught Gabby’s van on their dashcam footage. Everyone’s fears came to fruition when a body matching Gabby's was located in the Spread Creek Dispersment Camping Area in Wyoming on September 19, 2021. That body was positively identified as the remains of Gabrielle Venora Petito a few days later and that her death was a homicide.

Other cases around the United States that could benefit from an alert system for the public with correct "be on the look out for" information on people between ages 18-64 yrs, are all of the bodies found while searching not only for Gabby but also for her travel partner, Brian Laundrie. Most of these people found did not have national coverage and therefore were not being actively searched for. This alert could have not only saved lives in the past, but looking to the future, could help to save thousands, keep cases from going cold so quickly, but also saved precious time in catching a potential criminal involved by finding the missing persons sooner and if deceased, before valuable evidence is lost through decomposition and or weather. 

Local law enforcement, state police, US Marshall's Office, FBI and each State's Bureau of Investigations put out bulletins daily on wanted suspects, fugitives, and persons of interest but it is the missing persons flyers for this age range that without an alert go unreported on and missed by local and state wide residents. The Amber alert is utilized daily by law enforcement and has been credited for quickly finding thousands of abducted children since being implemented. The silver alert has found hundreds of senior citizens who have wandered away from facilities or their families and have gotten lost.

We need Gabby's Alert System with specific guidelines for the public to follow! We all can then make a unified effort in finding people who go missing against their will, or with suspicious circumstances; these people aged 18-64 yrs old need just as much attention brought to their cases as the young and old. It is critical that alerts go out quickly and crucial in the first 48 hour period at the beginning of a missing persons investigation.