In July 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a young woman named Gabby Petito left her home state to embark on a road trip with her then-partner, Brian Laundrie. She documented her travels on social media, posting videos and images on TikTok and Instagram. By September, her accounts had stopped posting, her partner returned home without her, and she was reported missing. The search for Ms. Petito prompted nationwide attention. Ms. Petito was ultimately found deceased a week later, in September 2021, and determined to have died by strangulation. Mr. Laundrie was found dead a month later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In his possession was a notebook that included a confession to Ms. Petito’s death. Mr. Laundrie wrote, “I ended her life, I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted but I see now all the mistakes I made.”1 This case, recently featured in a Netflix documentary, introduces topics relevant to forensic psychiatrists. These topics include intimate partner violence, missing white woman phenomenon and the interface between media, culture, bias, and forensic psychiatry.
Intimate Partner Violence, Race, and Culture
The Gabby Petito case generated a discussion of intimate partner violence and its potentially fatal outcome. Although little is known about intimate partner violence between Ms. Petito and Mr. Laundrie, we do know that police were called about two weeks prior to Ms. Petito’s death in response to a passerby’s report of a man (Mr. Laundrie) slapping a woman (Ms. Petito). The police body camera footage of this police check went viral, rapidly gaining popularity as the public sought answers to her disappearance and later death. In the footage, police debate whether Mr. Laundrie or Ms. Petito instigated the incident. Ultimately, although both parties exhibit some injuries, police do not press charges against either party.2 Ms. Petito’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department, alleging that the police officers did not do enough to investigate the situation and protect Ms. Petito. This case was dismissed.3
Intimate partner violence is often misunderstood by the public, in part because of gender-based myths. A common myth is that intimate partner violence only refers to violence by a man against a woman in the context of a long-standing relationship or marriage. But there are multiple pathways to relationship violence and types of violence.4,5 Patterns include coercive-controlling violence, violent resistance, situational couple violence, and separation-instigated violence.5 Depending on the sample type (general population versus court-involved population), rates of male-perpetrated violence versus female-perpetrated violence may be similar. Coercive-control violence itself is primarily perpetrated by men in heterosexual relationships and is more frequent and violent on average, whereas men and women equally perpetrate situational couple violence,6 related to stress and poor coping skills.
Similarly, in intimate partner homicide, there are multiple patterns and motives.7 When a man kills his partner, the act is usually preceded by documented intimate partner violence, and substance abuse may be the most common diagnosis.8 Factors relevant to escalation include social isolation, long-standing violence, coercion, strangulation, forced intercourse, and threats with a weapon. Motives for intimate partner homicide often involve obsessive jealousy, anger, and response to rejection or feelings of abandonment.8 Risk increases after an intimate partner violence victim communicates a desire to leave.
Ten percent of male homicide victims are killed by their female partners.9 Unlike male-perpetrated intimate partner homicide, female perpetrators are more likely to have been victims with recent violence preceding the homicide.10 Females are also more likely to describe self-defense as a motive to intimate partner homicide compared with males.11 Such findings relate to another gender-based myth, that females only commit intimate partner homicide in self-defense. Friedman et al.4 previously described the potential gender bias in battered woman syndrome (BWS) defenses.
In addition to gender-based myths, racial and ethnic biases permeate the public lens of intimate partner violence. Women victims of intimate partner homicide are disproportionately foreign-born and of minority groups.12 A study using national data to consider potential years of life lost from intimate partner homicide found that racial and ethnic minority women died nine or more years earlier than their White counterparts.13 The authors noted that “intimate partner violence-related fatalities exact a high societal cost, and the burden of that cost is disproportionately high among racial/ethnic minorities” (Ref. 13, p 2). This disproportionate effect on young women of minority ethnicity or race has led to calls for collaborations between victim services, the legal system, and psychiatry to intervene in cases of intimate partner violence with culturally specific strategies.
Missing White Woman Syndrome
After Gabby Petito was reported to be missing, weeks of relentless coverage from media sources followed, including three front-page articles in the New York Post, a breaking news story post on The New York Times, and hundreds of mentions on major news networks, including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.14 Her case garnered national attention via traditional media streams but also sparked a frenzy of content and consumption on social media, with creators posting multiple videos daily providing updates on the case, searching for clues on Ms. Petito’s social media pages, and engaging in web-sleuthing. This pattern of intense media attention has been seen before with similar cases, such as the cases of Laci Peterson,15 Elizabeth Smart, and Natalee Holloway. Ms. Petito’s body was later found near Grand Teton National Park, yet search efforts for Ms. Petito, and later Mr. Laundrie, ultimately discovered nine additional bodies, including a woman of color who had been missing for several months.16
These cases, and the amount of attention they garnered, can be considered examples of “missing white woman syndrome,” a term coined by journalist Gwen Ifill in 2004.17 The term refers to an under-researched phenomenon in which missing victim cases featuring young White women are disproportionately covered in news media when compared with women of color. This concept is not new; the “ideal victim” was first delineated in 1986 by Nils Christie,18 who noted that an ideal victim is worthy of sympathy by virtue of being blameless. Greer expanded on this idea, defining a “hierarchy of victimization,” wherein those perceived as vulnerable or innocent are considered legitimate victims and placed at the top of the hierarchy.19 By contrast, “illegitimate” victims are most often placed at the bottom and are often those who exist on the margins of society. This victim hierarchy is reflected in news coverage and broadly within policy. More recently, Conlin and Davie identified five factors that influenced the amount and type of coverage a victim would receive in the news: the sex, age, socioeconomic status, race, and level of perceived attractiveness of the victim.20 News coverage and public opinion about victims, ideal or not, cannot be disentangled. The quantity and quality of news coverage heavily influence public perceptions about victimhood. Conlin’s five factors arguably represent a modern definition of the ideal victim, considered above reproach, deserving of our collective sympathy and attention, and most often a young, White, middle-class woman.
Media Bias, Frame, and Public Perception
The concept of missing White woman syndrome applies to forensic psychiatrists because it points to the potential role of the media on both public perception and ourselves. First, we will explore how media coverage of a crime can potentially bias the public, then turn to the potential bias on forensic psychiatrists. More broadly, bias reflects a distortion of information or perception leading to prejudice in favor of or against a person or group when compared with another. Many factors, including a person’s own experiences, influence bias.21 Different types of bias, including attribution, confirmation, gender, racial, and beauty biases, are relevant to portrayals of missing women and victims of gendered violence nationally. Media reporting influences bias by describing and framing events. Studies of news coverage models have identified framing effects as “the process of shaping and changing the frames in the minds of viewers by presenting a certain frame in a message” (Ref. 20, p 40). In some instances, media framing may influence an individual’s perception of a specific event or problem more than that individual’s personal experience.22
In a review of news studies examining race and gender, Meyers and Leide23 identified enduring patterns of racial and gendered stereotypes in news media, including placing blame on victimized women instead of on the aggressor. More specifically, news media demonstrated reduced coverage of gendered violence against Black women, with disproportionate coverage of cases in which a Black male assailant committed violent acts against a White female victim. Notably, coverage of violence against Black women is generally limited unless the event contains unusual or sensationalized elements.23 Meyers wrote about tropes in news coverage of violence against Black women during Freaknik, a 1980s-1990s spring break festival in Atlanta to celebrate Black expression.24 Meyers reflected the trope of the “oversexed Jezebel,” or the sexually promiscuous Black woman, seen reflected in wider portrayals in film media. In these news reports, the Jezebel’s behavior is described as provoking sexual violence, blaming the victim and absolving the assailant. These tropes are seen in media coverage of missing persons, in which coverage of minoritized women is less likely to include descriptors of age, attractiveness, or positive attributes and more likely to include negative descriptors, such as past criminal activity or relationship instability. A study by Dixon and Linz assessing local TV news reporting found that Black individuals are overrepresented as criminals and underrepresented as victims.25 In a 2008 to 2012 study examining cable and network news programs, Black individuals were “invisible” because of an underrepresentation as both victims and perpetrators of violent crime.26 Finally, exposure to crime news has been associated with more severe attributions of criminal responsibility for Black crime suspects in comparison to White suspects and increased perception of Black persons as violent.27 These influences and potential for biases can affect judges and juries, both in perceptions of victims as well as culpability.
In Wyoming, where Ms. Petito’s body was eventually found, one report found that media outlets covered 30 percent of Indigenous homicide victims compared with covering 51 percent of White homicide victims.28 This report conducted by the University of Wyoming, reviewing data from the Governor’s Taskforce on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, additionally identified disproportionate inclusion of negative character portrayals of missing indigenous women compared with their White counterparts (16% versus 0%, respectively).
Returning to the concept of a “blameless victim,” Slakoff and Brennan found that coverage of Black and Latina women was more likely to blame victims and highlight risk-taking behavior, such as interacting with dangerous individuals.29 In addition to race, socioeconomic status has been identified as contributing to differential news coverage. Hawkins30 found significantly less media coverage for homicide victims who were from lower socioeconomic groups; crucially, an overlap exists between socioeconomic class and race within the United States. Sorenson and colleagues31 found that homicide cases involving a victim from a wealthy neighborhood received more coverage in the news. Similarly, victims with less than a high school education, another marker of socioeconomic class, also received less coverage. Conlin and Davie20 reviewed attractiveness as a factor in missing persons reporting, finding attractiveness to be a factor in reporting patterns of missing persons. In line with this concept is increased reporting of age in White women compared with non-White women, with the idea of youthfulness perhaps contributing to increased news coverage. Missing White women are more likely to have their age specifically delineated, whereas Black women are often referred to as “young women” or without reference to their age.20
When reviewing race and crime coverage more generally, multiple studies of media portrayals have demonstrated an overrepresentation of racially minoritized individuals as perpetrators of crime, in contrast to their White counterparts.32 Additionally, Black persons are less likely to be described as victims. These differences in portrayals, namely increased description of racially minoritized individuals as perpetrators and decreased identification as victims, leads to misperceptions by the public consuming media regarding crime statistics.32 Data have shown gender differences in media depictions of crimes, more commonly portraying female offenders as lower risk than their male counterparts.33
Coverage, Bias, and Forensic Psychiatry
Accepting or rejecting a forensic referral involves several factors independent of the expert’s expertise. Such factors may include the potential role of engagement on the expert’s career, including visibility in the public domain. Additionally, the visibility of a case may prejudice experts even before they are contacted for potential engagement. Manipulation of information has always been a barrier to the truth. Experts, in accordance with ethics principles, have strived for objectivity, navigating the influences of prejudicial and biased data. Media excess, a phenomenon of the current decade, introduces a persistent threat to objectivity. Gone are the days in which experts could successfully avoid media coverage of a case they are involved in. As a result, experts must be more diligent about the role media has on their work. These include deciding whether a case fits them well and considering the risks of potential media spotlight. Certain cases may be unsavory because of public backlash for providing an opinion related to defendants or evaluees who are the subject of societal condemnation. Conversely, cases may be pivotal if opinions align with societal agendas.
In theory, media attention to a forensic evaluation should not affect our forensic evaluation process nor our willingness to accept a case. In reality, it may. We may feel compelled to put more time and resources into evaluating a high-profile case. An early career psychiatrist asked to evaluate a high-profile case may shy away from the opportunity given the potential scrutiny of an evaluation and a limited existing track record. A different early career psychiatrist may eagerly accept a high-profile opportunity, anticipating desired public attention. Any expert’s decision-making regarding engagement should be informed by an honest, deliberate consideration of whether preexisting exposure to the media has biased the expert and what the potential future impact of the media might be.
Evaluees may significantly interact with various social media platforms, which may lead to collateral information that is useful in answering the evaluation question.34,35 Referral sources may provide records of media engagement, including text messages, emails, and social media, to the forensic evaluator. A forensic evaluator can also request such materials if potentially helpful. The decision to conduct a media search could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, evaluation of media about a case could be construed as the work of a thorough evaluator. Conversely, a psychiatrist who has undertaken an intense exploration of an evaluee’s public presence could be painted as voyeuristic or subject to media bias.
Media exposure to psychiatrists (and fictional psychiatrists) can affect public perception of psychiatry by providing education, reversing stigma, and correcting misinformation.36 Historically, practicing psychiatrists tended to avoid media engagement when possible.37 This historical attitude is becoming extinct. Exposure to the media in the 21st century is inevitable given the ubiquity of Internet access, a 24-7 news cycle, and social media. Both general and forensic psychiatrists have pivoted to various media platforms to stay in business. Many attorneys begin their review of an expert by examining their Internet presence. Even with a purposeful avoidance of Internet presence, forensic psychiatrists may still find that their evaluations and testimony are the subject of undesired media attention. Experts may feel compelled to explain or address misinformation about their opinions. Positive media representation of an expert may tempt the expert to view the media as an opportunity for advocacy. Each scenario prompts consideration of the media’s role in our practices, aiming to move toward purposeful and mindful media engagement. Cooke and colleagues38 outlined threats to the profession regarding media interactions, including violating the Goldwater Rule and other professional ethics violations. Professional ethics violations, however, are just one pitfall of media engagement. As illustrated by the construct of the missing White woman phenomenon and media framing, our own relationship with the media is often not fully recognized. True objectivity requires us to know every potential variable in our opinions. In an era of media excess, we must accept the impossibility of fully understanding the role of media on our opinions.
Conclusion
The case of Gabby Petito brings up many areas rife for consideration by forensic psychiatrists and, in particular, a discussion of the interface between forensic psychiatry and the topics of media, bias, race, gender, and culture. As forensic psychiatrists, we must be mindful of biases, including our own. Although bias is often automatic, acting on bias is not.39 Correcting bias requires a willingness to look at oneself honestly and critically as well as the potential use of debiasing strategies, such as training about cognitive bias and considering whether a person’s initial judgment may be wrong.21,40 Recently, DiCiro and Sreenivasan offered a practical approach to identifying and reducing biases in forensic mental health assessments by reviewing a cognitive framework developed by Itiel Dror, a cognitive neuroscientist. This approach is one mechanism to reduce expert biases.41 Practically, peer review or obtaining a second opinion from a trusted colleague could help provide feedback about potential blind spots.
Footnotes
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.
- © 2025 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
