No evidence Gabby Petito texted 'send the authorities now' before her death

Gabby Petito’s remains were discovered in Wyoming in September 2021, about a week after the 22-year-old didn’t return from a cross-country trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, and her family reported her missing.  

Laundrie later killed himself, and the FBI revealed that a notebook found near his body included statements in which he claimed responsibility for Petito’s death by strangulation. But social media rumors argue that Petito’s family should have known she was in trouble before her killing because of a text sent from Petito’s phone. 

"To all my friends — especially female — I don’t know if you saw the last text Gabby Petito sent to her mother, but it talked about ‘Stan,’" one April 20 Facebook post said. "Her mother thought it referred to her grandfather but thought it was weird she called him by name. STAN is an acronym for Send The Authorities Now." 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Although it’s true that Petito’s mother thought it odd that one of the last texts sent from her daughter’s phone called her grandfather by his first name, we found no evidence that it was a distress call. 

In fact, it appears the idea that STAN is an acronym for "Sent The Authorities Now" surfaced only after news broke that Petito texted the name to her mother. 

We searched the Nexis news database and Google for mentions of this acronym before her disappearance, and found none. 

There are conflicting reports about the last text Petito’s family received from her phone, but it’s safe to say the "Stan" text was among the final missives. 

Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, said she last received a text from her daughter’s phone on Aug. 30, 2021, that said "no service in Yosemite," the New York Post reported. But the Post said Schmidt told the paper that she didn't believe Petito sent the text. 

A search warrant, meanwhile, says an Aug. 27, 2021, text Schmidt received from her daughter’s phone "was the last communication anyone had with the subject."

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The text said: "Can you help Stan, I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls." 

The warrant said Stan was a reference to Petito’s grandfather, "but per the mother, she never calls him ‘Stan.’ The mother was concerned that something was wrong with her daughter."

The FBI later said it appeared that Laundrie had sent text messages from Patito’s phone to give the false impression that she was still alive.

We don’t know whether he sent the text referring to Stan. But we found no evidence to corroborate this post’s claim that Petito was asking her mother to "send the authorities now." We rate it False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.