BLUE POINT, NY — Gabby Petito’s family took to social media this week to warn followers about online scammers who are impersonating them and asking for funds.
The slain Long Islander’s father, Joseph Petito, shared a screenshot on Instagram of messages from someone pretending to be him and asking for money donations for a mural, and then telling the person: “We deeply appreciate you and your thoughts being with us during this time.”
The person — believing it was Joseph Petito — then responds that they would love to spread the word about the donations.
Then the scammer tells them to be sure to send a message to his “wife”, adding, “You all God (sic) angels we love you all.”
Petito captioned the screenshot, writing that it is an account trying to scam people on Instagram, and it’s “this kind of stuff” that makes him “sick.”
“We would never do this,” he wrote, adding, the hashtag, scammers suck!
Petito was found strangled to death last September near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, is believed to have killed himself in a swamp in Florida. The Federal Bureau of Investigation later revealed that Laundrie claimed responsibility for her death in a notebook that was found with his remains.
In a Tweet on Wednesday, Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, also tipped her nearly 70,000 followers off to the scam.
“Twitter fam, just a heads up … someone is trying to scam money in my name,” she wrote. “I will NEVER message anyone asking for donations,…
