Mask Mandates - Title Theft Insurance - Gabby Petito Case

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I talk about mask mandates and title theft insurance.

Is it a scam? We'll talk about all that next. Welcome in to The Outlaw Lawyer's. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. 46 combined years of experience. Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina. We talk all kinds of family law, criminal and traffic, personal injury, real estate closings, estate planning and administration. If it's legal, we're talking about it on The Outlaw Lawyer's.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Number to get in touch with the program, 800-659-1186. If you've got legal questions, leave a message. They will be in touch with you. Also, you can email questions to the show.

We'll use them on future shows. Questions at theoutlawlawyers.com. If you want to kick the tires on the web, go to the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Gentlemen, welcome in. It's been a crazy week. Look forward to this topic.

I mean, so many different topics of discussion, but get us started. Morgan, I just want to start off and thank you for, again, an incredible, incredible intro. You do a fantastic job every time. I really, one day, hopefully, hundreds of years into the future because of medical advancements when I pass away, I want you to narrate my funeral just like that. I come at a price, but we can negotiate. Certainly, we can. Well, Joe, lots to talk about. When we started this show, the goal was to pull items out of the news cycle that maybe attorneys could examine from a legal perspective, kind of look at statutes, look at case law, kind of look at a news item like it was coming into our offices as part of a consult. That's the goal of the show, but it seems like all we do is talk about COVID. We do talk a lot about COVID, man. I think the goal of the show is a noble and great goal, but it does seem like the news fails us from time to time. We're doing the show weekly, and the news cycle doesn't always produce the best topics to discuss in that manner.

We make the best of it. We try to do the questions, but we do end up coming back to COVID a lot because that's so prevalent in the news, Josh. We've spent a lot of time talking about vaccine mandates. Can your employer make you get a vaccine? Can the federal government make you get a vaccine?

We've discussed that, and we've never discussed a mask mandate in any shape or form. It's a little bit different than the vaccine discussion, so I think that topic is ripe to be discussed. We got that one pretty high on the list today. Yeah, we'll talk about COVID because that seems to be what we tend to do. Again, going through the news cycle, and that dominates the news cycle.

It's ever-present. We're also going to talk about the Gabby Petito case, which has also been a super relevant news item, really blown up in the media, really blown up virally. We'll kind of look at that from the angle. There's not a ton of technical legal discussion. We can talk about some of the nuances of the primary suspect in the case, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. We're just going to talk about this recent trend of crowd-sourced investigation, where social media has become more prevalent. We've really seen a lot of individuals getting involved via social media with these ongoing investigations. This most recent example has really been interesting to look at as far as the sheer participation on various social media outlets from just tons of individuals, kind of amateur detectives, if you will.

Well, it's interesting to me. You may not know this, Joseph, but when I was coming up through undergrad, I was in NC State. I was in their major. That's the equivalent of a, we didn't call it a journalism major, but it was basically the equivalent of a journalism major. So we would sit with people. Our instructors were folks who used to work as editors for the Raleigh Times and the News & Observer.

The further I got along in that major, one of the things we talked about is what is news and how do you approach reporting the news and what makes it in the, back then, the newspaper, right, and what does it. So it always surprises me when stories like this, Gabby, how do you say your last name, Joe? I'm going to go with Petito. Petito, that's what we're doing. All right. That's what we're going with.

I'm going to call her Gabby. So this is an unfortunate story, no matter how you look at it. And it's just terrible all the way around and these families will be forever changed. But when something just goes this viral, everybody reports on it every second of the day. It just, it always, it always just surprises me how it takes it over, you know, just takes over the news cycle.

And it really helps. Man, it's proliferated the news every night. And it's always interesting to look at the factors, you know, of what, you know, people, things like this, unfortunately, happen far too frequently. And we don't always hear about it, especially in this level of detail.

And, you know, that's, that's almost its own discussion. There's a lot of, you know, people who theorize as far as whether there are certain, you know, racial factors behind that, whether, you know, certain individuals, due to, for whatever reason, you know, get more attention for one reason or another. And there's a lot of factors you can really look at. But, but I think a big factor in this case, in particular, is the victim, you know, was very, very active on social media. There was a lot of things that, you know, people could really look at and trace by looking at social media as a result of that. And so that really aided in the captivation of a lot of things that, you know, have a lot of individuals who are spending a lot more time at home, looking at their computers, searching social media, and kind of looking for something to do.

So I think it's kind of like a perfect storm that really made this case take off in the public eye and kind of become viral in the way that it has. Well, too, I wanted to warn our listeners, we've had a couple of, we've had a couple of listeners call in, you know, we've had a couple of listeners call in or interact with us on on social media. We're gonna talk about the mask mandate. And when we talk about the mask mandate, we're not doing it from, you know, me and Joe consider ourselves to be pretty much a political. We don't we don't really think about things along party lines or the evil Democrat Party or the evil Republican Party. When we talk about something, we're talking about it as as disassociated as we possibly can. We have our own personal opinions, for sure. But we never do anything about party lines. And so when we talk about the mask mandate, we're really concerned with, is it legal?

How does it affect you? And just kind of kind of look at the arguments on both sides. But you'll never hear me and Joe tow a party line or promote one promote one party over the others, just really not what we're about on the show or even personally. Yeah, I think we we really love meant that as far as how the news these days really tends to kind of split equally across party lines.

And you know, what what various news outlets report can really be heavily dictated by the political leanings or affiliation of the viewers of the news. So yeah, you're right, Josh, we we try and again, we're we're in, we're not perfect. We may not do the best job always. But our goal here, again, is always to be completely apolitical, to look at things from a neutral perspective. And what that means is, is we're not going to just look at an argument, we're not going to always just look at something to make an argument for one side or the other. You know, we may take a stance based on our understanding of the law and say, this is what the law says. But but that shouldn't be confused with really advocating for either side of a position. And what we're going to always try to do is we're going to, as fairly as we can, present both sides of the argument. So, you know, if we talk about the mask mandate, and we talk about, you know, the the pro mask side of the argument, we're also going to give you the the anti mask side of the argument. And, and I don't want anyone to confuse our explanation of both of those perspectives with being us advocating for either position. Because again, we've had some folks that are angry. And, you know, we're just presenting the information as best we can from both sides. And it's not necessarily that we're advocating for either side, we're just putting out there the art, we're trying to be as balanced and fair as we can.

Because again, that that's where a lot of our frustration comes from with with the news today is you you get one side or the other as opposed to getting a more complete full picture that will allow you to kind of form your own opinion about it. And our last topic, if we have time, one of the things we wanted to talk about was I came up twice for me this week in my practice, people asking me about title theft insurance. So Joe and I were attorneys with Whitaker and Hamer. We do a lot of real estate transactional thousands and thousands of real estate transactions a year. We do a lot in title insurance. But these questions were about title theft insurance. And so I want to spend some time talking about what the difference in those are and talk to people because I think there must have been a recent mailing by a title theft insurance because I got a lot of people asking me questions like, oh, I thought I already had title insurance. And so I wanted to talk about that. Joe, that might not be the most exciting topic in the world, but title theft insurance.

I think it needs to be talked about. Josh, if you could hear my heart beating right now out of my chest with excitement, I feel like I just took a shot of adrenaline, man. Hearing you talk about title theft insurance has got my blood pumping. Guys, title theft insurance is sexy.

We're bringing it back. That's what the people on the streets want, Morgan. They want more information about title theft insurance. I spend a lot of time in the streets and I can confirm. Almost every person I speak to randomly, they say, you're the outlaw lawyer guy, right? One of those guys.

Can you talk about title theft insurance? They're just begging for it. Yeah. Go now. Let me hear more information. Wait for it. Several minutes of this show before we get to the meat.

That is the dessert. I tell you guys, show sounds fantastic. Can't wait to get into the meat of it. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, 46 combined years experience, and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay-Varina. And we're going to talk all kinds of criminal and traffic, family law, personal injury, estate planning and administration, real estate closings.

Basically, it's what Josh and Joe acquire over the previous week. And they just want to talk about it and what it means for you legally and have that discussion. And certainly, if you want to get in touch with the program, if you've got a legal question, here's the number, 800-659-1186. Again, 800-659-1186. Leave the detailed information with your contact info and an attorney from Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch to have that conversation. You can also email the program a question and that's questions at the outlawlawyer.com. And you can check out the website, the outlawlawyer.com on the world wide web. We're back right after this. Masks in school.

Don't go to your local school board meeting and try to fight the people there. Just listen to our show. The outlaw lawyer back on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. 46 combined years experience and they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay-Varina. We talk all things legal, real estate closings estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. If you've got a question, a legal question about anything that we're talking about, maybe you need some help, here's the number to call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave the detailed information and an attorney from Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. Again, questions if you want a question answered on the show. We will take those questions and on a upcoming show we will answer those questions.

Just email the question to questions at the outlawlawyer.com and please go to the website the outlawlawyer.com and kick the tires there. Guys, I know that there's been a lot about the mask update and everything that's going on in the state of North Carolina. What's the latest?

Well, kids are going back to school. They have been for a while now and so the masks in school debate is kind of reaching a fever pitch. Would you say that is an accurate description, Joshua? I would.

I would. I know in Wake County we had a mask mandate, I suppose, for a while and some of towns and the cities joined in and I suppose there's a federal mask mandate in place as well, which is all kind of funny because in my day to day... So, me and Joe, we were in the Whitaker and Hamer suite over at the PNC and enjoyed a little WWE Monday Night Raw this past Monday and didn't see a lot of masks. We didn't see a lot of masks.

And that's not entirely accurate. You saw a number of masks and the way that the PNC handles it is kind of, it's situational in the sense that I think they let the performers kind of dictate whether they're going to mandate a vaccine or a negative test. I think technically everyone should have the mask on. You saw them more in line and you saw them more when everybody was kind of traversing the concourse and going to concessions. But yeah, you don't see hardly anyone wearing a mask when they're sitting down.

It's very few and far between. And again, it's all about, you know, you've got individuals that are stationed around and it's kind of in their discretion to enforce it. And it's just kind of, it's kind of strange, man. It's a strange thing because it's a hot button issue. We talk about these hot button issues all the time. And especially as we get into discussing the masks in school, it becomes a wildly hot button issue because you involve children and you have parents who have extremely, extremely strong opinions about, you know, what their kids should or should not be doing. And you see a whole lot of conflict, Josh.

Yeah, definitely. You know, going back, I've been to over the past couple of weeks, I've been to a state game over at Carter-Finley. We've been to a Luke Combs concert. We've been to a Willie Nelson concert. We've seen some wrestling.

So we've been in a couple of different venues, kind of seen the artist have different requirements and how everybody dealt with that. But yeah, when you bring it into the schools, and this is one thing I never really understood, you know, the people that have really, and I know our listeners are going to have opinions either way, but the people that are so dug in, you know, one side or the other, where people can't seem to, on both sides, right, can't seem to sit down and just kind of reasonably, let's figure out some sort of compromise or kind of talk about what we're trying to accomplish and make some, maybe some reasonable rules. And, but yeah, there's been all kinds of little viral videos of parents fighting at board meetings and board meetings getting canceled because someone's yelling.

And definitely, definitely kind of a no, no reasonable civil debate on this issue. Seems like everybody's one way or the other. And I don't know that everybody's that way. I mean, I think there, there are some people that are probably can take a pretty reasonable, balanced approach to it, kind of like we're trying to do see both sides, but those aren't the ones that are making the viral videos. And those are the ones that are going to the school board meeting and getting real fired up and yelling at everybody.

That's, that's the real litmus test of whether an issue is a hot button issue or someone really cares about it when someone's really willing to go to a public forum and just scream at people and berate them. Yeah, that's, I was talking to somebody else today, having coached youth basketball and refs, some youth basketball and, you know, school board folks or volunteers. It always shocks me how some people are okay with really just letting loose on a, you know, a volunteer or, you know, just railing. I remember I coached a game of a eight-year-old, I think it was eight, nine-year-old basketball was the first game I refereed. And it was, you know, park and rec kind of a low, a low level of eight, nine-year-old basketball. And the amount of parents that just railed on me, uh, during that game, I think I'm at least an average referee at this point in my life. But, um, yeah, there's a lot of people that don't mind doing that, I guess.

You shouldn't have missed that travel call, Josh, little Jimmy. Uh, but yeah, so anyways, the mask mandates in school, it's a hot button issue. Uh, as of this recording, I think at least 14 States have actually filed lawsuits, either for or against the mask mandates. And it's, and it's led to a lot of protests.

It's, it's led to a lot of litigation and it's led to some violence. So, you know, kind of diving into this topic, I think the first thing we kind of need to establish, uh, and, and again, Josh, we aren't scientists by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think anyone would confuse us for scientists, but we are able to take the scientific information available and kind of present it. So the scientific argument that is advanced for wearing masks, it's really twofold and it's, and it's fairly simple.

I think anybody could really understand it. And that's one wearing a mask contains our own secretions and the, you know, the particulate matter that we exhale and it can kind of contains it and reduces the spread of that. And then it also protects against the secretions and, and the particulate matter that is exhaled by other individuals.

So it kind of protects others and it kind of protects you as well. And I, and I think that's a dumbed down explanation of the scientific argument for mask wearing. I think a dumbed down version is about all we can be expected to do.

That's the best you're going to get from us is that dumbed down version. So, so that's, that's the scientific argument in a nutshell. And that is the case that science has made. And I think the unfortunate thing about the mask mandate and, and really about a lot of things related to COVID is the fact that there was never a, there was never really a point where we all just kind of looked strictly at the science because everything got so heavily politicized almost immediately and, and everything became more of a political debate.

And, and science kind of got cast to the side because based on your political beliefs and the way that this is presented in the news and the way that's various political parties discuss it, you kind of get divided into two camps and, and the science gets politicized to the point where you've got people on both sides disbelieving the science because of their political views, essentially. Yeah. I think a lot of it too, the leadership kind of did a poor job of, of educating people and, and against, you know, steered us away as a society, steered us away from mask early, brought them back in. And, and then you have the different kinds of masks that people wear. I see a lot of people wearing masks that probably aren't making much of a difference, you know? And, and so there's, I think you put all that together and, and I understand why some people are kind of dug into their position on both sides.

Yeah. You know, I think the initial reversing, of course, from the CDC, you know, I think coming out against mask and then almost immediately kind of coming back and reversing course, I can see, I can see where that can throw some people off. And then you kind of have, you know, news outlets and media. And then again, people on both sides of the political aisle kind of pouncing on that and driving the divide.

And that's kind of what drives the views and that's kind of what drives the clicks. And so rather than, you know, seeing many people who are encouraging a kind of balanced approach, or like you said, some form of compromise or discussion on this, you just kind of see exacerbation of the issue on both sides. So, you know, there's been a lot of issues with the mandates, you know, some states have outright come out and banned those mandates, and we've seen a lot of lawsuits as a result of that. And, you know, you see a lot of just non-compliance and just outright, almost violent defiance of a lot of the mandates that have been put into place. And man, it's one of those things.

How do you calm down either side of the argument and even bring anyone to compromise? Because again, people are so fired up, man, if you're willing to, when you get to the point where you're willing to do the screaming at the school board meeting, that's almost the point of no return, man. Yeah. And that's the thing we see on a lot of these issues is, and that's like, if you don't want to wear a mask, I get it. You know, if you want everybody to wear a mask, I can kind of get where you're coming from. But when you get to that point where you can't even talk about it reasonably, I think that's a problem. And we're seeing that, you know, and the news cycle doesn't help and everything that we've talked about, but the not being able to discuss things reasonably on both sides is a big problem.

And it's exasperated. This is like the perfect storm, this mask mandate that has to do with people's children. That's like the perfect storm for, you know, strong emotions on both sides.

Yeah, that's right, man. And I think, like you said, there's arguments on both sides. And I think kind of, you know, we can kind of touch on the arguments on both sides because, I mean, they're fairly straightforward. As far as the argument for masks in schools, you've got people who point to the science and say, you know, the science says that wearing a mask is going to be beneficial. It's going to reduce the spread. Social distancing also helps as well, but it's a little bit more difficult because of resources and space to socially distance all the kids. So the mask is really the best form of protection we can give the kids. They can't be vaccinated if you strongly believe in the efficacy of the vaccine. A lot of the kids can't be.

So a lot of people think it's the only thing that can really be done to prevent the spread in children. And then on the other side of the aisle, you've got folks who really see it as kind of a body autonomy issue or a freedom issue. They don't want to be told what to do. They don't want to be told what their kids have to do.

They want to be free to make those decisions for their kids. They may question the effectiveness of the masks and think that the science is a little muddled. That's what's so interesting, man. You can have people on both sides of the aisle that are like, they can look at the same study and come to different conclusions about it.

And a lot of these people aren't qualified to be analyzing any kind of scientific study. And it's just funny, but you see super strong opinions on both sides of the aisle. And I don't see any compromise coming between those two very diametrically opposed opinions. Well, it's like we talk about, Joe, it's gotten to a point where we used to all agree what the news was. We could look at the events of a day and as a society, we could all agree, hey, the president spoke at the UN and this law is going to be debated in Congress. And we all agreed what the news was. Now we may have different opinions on what happened, but we knew what the, and it's the same thing with like a scientific study. We get a scientific study and no matter what it says, if it doesn't says what you like, then of course you look at the authors and was this peer reviewed and was it, it almost doesn't matter what comes out anymore.

It's going to be instantly parsed and discredited or credited politically. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what you do about it. I just try to really fight that urge to take a quick opinion and really try to absorb any information I can to try to make a reasonable decision, but it's hard to do. Guys, I just want to jump in and say it is frustrating when you see the clips on TV of a school board meeting and, you know, grown adults screaming each other down and I almost want to take the term from years ago when your parents would put you in timeout just to kind of cool you off.

And there are certain cases that we've seen, certain incidents where we've seen, you know, they just need to back up and, and have, you know, calmer discussions if possible, but it's almost like we've gone down the rabbit hole and it's hard to, it's hard to come back from that, but at least be calm, respect each other and respect the opposing opinion and, and maybe we can talk our way through these things. The Outlaw Lawyers, it's Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience.

Again, they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. If you've got legal questions of your own, or you've got a question about what we've been talking about today and what we will continue to talk about on the other side, please give us a call. 800-659-1186.

Leave us a detailed message. One of the attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer will give you a return call and get your information. And if you want to ask a question to the show that we can answer on a future program, just email us questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And of course, always go to the website, theoutlawlawyer.com.

Coming up next, we wrap up our mask and school debate and discussion, and we get into the Gabby case and the crowdsourcing of criminal investigations. The Outlaw Lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience between these two. And they've got offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. You're probably saying, but yeah, it's just two attorneys. How can they have so many offices?

They have a lot of attorneys working for them. And folks, if you've got questions on the legal side about anything we've been talking about, or maybe something that's going on in your world, and you just want some questions answered, here's the number to call. 800-659-1186.

800-659-1186. You may want to leave a question for the show. Certainly do that. Again, you may have a legal question of your own. If you want to email us a question that we can use in a future program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com.

And you can also go online, theoutlawlawyer.com and check out the program there. But we talk legal each and every week here on the Outlaw Lawyers. And guys, I know you wanted to wrap up a mask in schools conversation, and then get into probably one of the biggest stories we've had in about at least, I don't know, since the pandemic.

Yeah, that's right, Morgan. You know, we've talked a lot. We've kind of rambled a little bit as we are apt to do. We haven't really gotten into the legal meat of the mask in school mandate. And it's kind of a tricky subject to touch on in just one segment.

But we'll kind of try to put a bow on it. You know, every state kind of handles this mask mandate issue differently. Some states have outright banned mask mandates, and you've seen some pushback on that.

You've seen, you know, Governor DeSantis in Florida has basically threatened to withhold salaries of school board members who try to uphold or enforce mask mandates. And you've seen a lot of parents push back. And their arguments, basically, these parents pushing back is that essentially, I'm free to raise my kids, and to make these kind of health decisions for them in any way I see fit. And Josh, I guess the question I pose to you is, is parental freedom to do that and to raise their kids as they see fit? Is that an unlimited right? No, I think if you take a look at kind of the Supreme Court cases that revolve around vaccination and health care for children, it's not unlimited.

And I don't think it ever has been. So there's a Supreme Court case we won't delve too far into, but Prince v. Massachusetts. The Supreme Court held that parents are not free to make martyrs of their children.

They're not free in the name of — this case involved a religious objection to medical treatment. So parents aren't free in the name of religion to pose harm to their children or in the case of communicable disease to permit their own religious beliefs to impose harm or the risk of communicable diseases to others. And so the Supreme Court talks about this a lot. There are a lot of cases, you know, going back to vaccines needed for schools, what kind of religious exemptions are available. You know, if we're talking about the law, the law has definitely not put into parents' hands an unlimited right to raise their kids any way that they see fit. And we always talk about balancing equities. And so anytime the court gets in this discussion, they're going to balance your right to raise your kid the way you want versus, you know, harm to others in society.

And it's the same balancing equation they use in a lot of different constitutional right type of cases. It's, you know, your freedom, your freedom to raise your kid versus the freedom of other people to raise their kid and how those things kind of come together. Yeah, you really said it. And I think that kind of puts a good point there.

A good bow on this aspect of the show and this conversation. It's not an unlimited right. It's not an unfettered right.

You know, there's argument, there's arguments both ways. And there's arguments that, you know, it's not, there's definitely authority to impose these mandates. And then again, the other side of the coin is that, you know, it conflicts with certain, you know, very important rights.

And again, like you said, it's a balancing act. And with all the litigation we're seeing, it's a relatively, the mask thing's a relatively new issue as far as its proliferation into general society and how prevalent it's become. So it'll be very interesting to see how these things kind of develop and what kind of rulings we see come down. And Joe, you had mentioned to me earlier, you know, I hadn't looked too much into it, but I know the Department of Justice came out and a lot of the states that are defying mask mandates or outlawing mask mandates. I know the Department of Justice has kind of taken the stance or at least beginning to take the posture that this may be in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, whereas your refusal to cooperate with a mask mandate may be putting, you know, disabled Americans at higher risk who maybe can't get the vaccine or what have you.

So there's a lot of interesting legal arguments being put out there for or against. And I will again make a famous bold prediction that this will not be the last time that we discussed this topic. It's with us, man, this COVID stuff. It's changed. It's changed the game. It's really split everybody right in half right down the middle. And I think we will also make another bold prediction that there is no way to reverse the politicization, the politicizing of the issue. And unfortunately, I think we will just see that division kind of continue to grow. Maybe I'm wrong.

I'd love to be wrong. I would love to us all to just kind of reach a place of harmony and peace and hold hands and sing songs and beat COVID together. Kumbaya. I like it.

I like it. So the biggest story that we have seen in in recent weeks kind of played out on social media. Joe, I know you're in tune with this. And it's a situation where it was a cross-country trip that turned into a missing person that turned into a delayed report of a missing person. And then the person that was with them then disappeared.

And now we've got a body and now we've got a manhunt going on. That is a very accurate summary. You know, I'm semi in tune with this. It's hard to say that I'm truly in tune with this because, again, the level of the level of attention that this has gotten on social media in the news. And there's people who are super in tune with this.

And there's people who who, again, they're with COVID. There's a lot of folks spending more time at home, spending more time on their computers, spending more time on social media. And a lot of those individuals are dedicating a lot of that time to to things like this, to these kind of, you know, these things pop up in the news, these these crimes or these mysteries. And a lot of people can really get absorbed.

So, yes, I am in tune. But there are some individuals that are just incredibly in tune to the point where it's almost like they're detectives on the case and they're really kind of tracking down every lead. So it's been very interesting to see how that's developed. And it's not necessarily a new thing, but with the prevalence of social media increasing, we've really seen some growth. And this has been one of the more interesting examples of that in recent memory. I was just going to say, can you guys summarize the players involved and what happened?

So, yeah. So, you know, the FBI, they announced on Sunday that they they had found a body that they believe to be we'll just we'll call her Gabby. And on Tuesday, they confirmed that it was her.

So just to give you some background and then we can kind of go through a timeline of the events just to get everybody up to speed. You know, Gabby was a 22 year old Instagram influencer. Her boyfriend was a 23 year old Brian Laundrie.

And again, their cases recently just kind of dominated the news and social media. The two of them embarked on a road trip together from Laundrie's family home, which was in North Port, Florida. That was in June of 2021. They were reportedly planning on traveling west and kind of seeing a lot of state and national parks.

In July of 2021, they traveled through Colorado and into Utah. And, you know, Gabby was kind of a social media influencer. So she really chronicled this trip with the hashtag van life and kind of posted a lot of aspects to it. So I think that's one of the things that that made this more popular and kept it in the public eye because you could really go and trace her steps along the journey and you could really kind of do your own investigation.

And it really led to a lot of viral popularity and made this one of the biggest stories that we've seen this year. And so I guess so that was June and July that that they were traveling. And so in August, let's say about August the 12th, that's when the incident happened. There was a domestic dispute between I'll keep calling Gabby and Brian.

I always hate calling people by their last names. And the sheriff's office out there in Utah got involved. And a caller called 911 claiming he witnessed Brian slapping Gabby and chasing her up and down a sidewalk there in Utah and hitting her. Apparently, this took place on Main Street. And there was reported it was between a young couple driving a van with a Florida license plate, which would make you believe it was between our folks that were following.

Yeah. And so actually, the police would locate that van, they would pull the couple over. And in fact, it was Gabby and Brian. And another interesting aspect, again, when you see these things unfold, it's amazing how much access that you have in today's day and age with all the cameras, with all the recording that goes on. So there's actually body cam footage that's been released of this traffic stop. And in that, the couple admits to arguing. And it's funny because actually, it's Gabby, they allege that it's Gabby that actually slapped Brian.

And they say that he didn't touch her, essentially. So the body cam footage has been a little bit controversial because the people who have looked at it, and again, people have looked at and analyzed and really pulled apart every single detail of this. Folks have a lot of free time.

And folks are spending that free time doing things like this. But there's one portion of the video that's really been heavily criticized where it almost seems like the officers that are called to the scene kind of bond with Brian. And at one point, they're actually kind of joking with him about how women can be and identifying him as the victim, which again, in the officer's defense, if you approach a situation and you're told by two individuals that she was striking him, I mean, it's hard to really be too upset or to judge them too much without being there. But at the same time, it is a little concerning that you can get a 911 call from an eyewitness saying that there's a woman that's being abused.

And this is how the situation is approached and resolved. And so soon after that, the last time Gabby was kind of seen alive was checking out of a hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. I think that was August the 24th. And then Gabby's mother spoke to her on the 25th. And Gabby was excited. They were leaving Utah and they were heading up towards Yellowstone.

And then that was it. Gabby is off the radar after that. Yeah, so she's completely off the radar.

And like you said, her mother, it was unusual for her to go off the radar. They kept in close contact. They spoke, you know, frequently, if not constantly. And, you know, like your mom said, she sounded excited. And she sounded like she was, you know, enjoying the trip and looking forward to continuing it. But that communication ceases.

It kind of stops. Now, Gabby's mother does say that she received two text messages from Gabby's phone after the 25th. But there were no details.

There were no photos of the trip. So, you know, it's really unclear whether those were messages that were actually sent by Gabby or whether perhaps they were sent by some other individual that had control of her phone at the time. So, the last photograph that is uploaded to Gabby's Instagram account is actually from the 25th.

So, that's really, that's really the point where we kind of lose contact with her. And so, between August 27th and the 30th, federal and state authorities said that investigators believe Gabby disappeared near the Spread Creek dispersed camping area in Bridgerton National Forest in Wyoming. The FBI kind of came out and asked for help from the public via Twitter. And then as a result of that, on August 29th, there's another lead, you know, a witness claimed that she and her boyfriend gave Brian a ride in the Grand Teton National Park that day on August 29th. The witness claimed that Brian told her and her boyfriend that he had been camping alone for days while Gabby worked on their social media page from their van. Brian kind of vanishes once the witnesses drop him off.

This is kind of where we lose track of Brian. JONATHAN So, yeah, and so this is, it's very interesting, man. There's a couple of things that are interesting about it. One is the FBI kind of issuing a call for help via Twitter. I mean, that kind of shows you the day and age we're in.

And the fact that, and it makes sense, man. If I ever vanish, Josh, I want to be the first to say, I want you to go to Twitter, and I want you to ask our millions of followers to come help look for me, man. Crowdsource, you have full permission to crowdsource the investigation into my disappearance to the fullest extent of social media. All right, Joe, we're up against a break, so we'll stop there.

On the other side, we'll continue tracking what happened to Brian after this point. Morgan, if our listeners want to contact us, what's the best way? All right, the Outlaw Lawyer's easily contacted. Here's the number, 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. If you want to email a question to the program that we can answer on a future program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And you can always visit the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Coming up, we will finish our discussion of the Gabby case. The Outlaw Lawyer's back on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience between these two. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verena. If you've got a legal question, great time to get in touch. Obviously, 800-659-1186, 800-659-1186.

Leave the detailed information and an attorney will be back in touch with you to answer those questions for you. If you have a question for the program and you want to email it to us and we can use it in a future show, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. Guys, I know you wanted to wrap up the Gabby Petito case.

I mean, certainly this discussion, it's got the entire country focused on it. That's right. And I kind of want to go back, Josh. You mentioned the fact that there was a witness that claimed she gave, she and her boyfriend gave Brian a ride. I think it's interesting that witness actually claimed and put that out there via TikTok. So it brings me back to we really need that TikTok account, Josh. Yeah, I thought we were, I thought you were, I thought you were on that for us. I put the scientist on it, man.

They just haven't, they haven't been able to get the formula together yet, but that's, that's definitely coming. So getting back to the facts, you know, the witnesses, the witnesses in this TikTok post, they claim they dropped off Brian and he kind of vanished from that point as far as where they didn't see him. He does return actually back to Florida, September the 1st, he returns home to Florida by himself with no Gabby in Gabby's van. And he is not speaking or cooperating in any way to authorities at this point.

Yeah. And you know, that's disconcerting, you know, and, and, but September 11th is when Gabby is officially reported missing by her family and the FBI and everybody gets involved. And the, the Laundrie family, you know, they're, I always try to think about, now that I have kids, always try to think about the parents in both of these, both sides here, you know, the, of course, Gabby's parents are, you know, Gabby's missing. It's assumed, I guess at least we're assuming, as a country that Brian probably knows what's happened, or at least has some information that he's not sharing, you know, but his parents have a kid they're worried about too. So it's always, you know, the Laundrie family was not talking to anybody about anything. They've consulted an attorney.

They're not talking. And that's exactly what I would have told them if they had, if we were representing Brian and his family, there's, you know, there's no reason to talk to anybody. You're going to be a suspect at some point. And, and that kind of gets us to the legal part of this. You know, we've been kind of going through facts and there's a lot of stuff going on here. We could talk about domestic violence and how that's handled legally. But I think the more interesting conversation right now is, is kind of, this is where the fifth amendment, the right against self-incrimination really comes into play.

And it's such a tough discussion, man, because like you said, as a parent, you know, I have a daughter and, you know, putting myself in the shoes of Gabby's parents, you know, hearing the primary and really only suspect in the case of her disappearance, you know, pleading the fifth and invoking his right against self-incrimination, it makes me angry. And it, and it seems, it seems, you know, completely unjustified from an emotional perspective and it just, you would want to just strangle that person basically. But again, you disconnect yourself from that. You take the emotion out of it. You look at it from a strictly legal perspective. And like you said, it's, it's exactly what an attorney who has their clients, which again, their client in this case being Brian's best interest in heart, is going to encourage Brian to do in this case. But man, it's tough.

It's a tough pill to swallow. Well, I guess we should remind everybody that we're taping this prior to air. And so at the time we're taping this, Brian has not been located. We haven't heard from Brian. Everybody's still looking for him. But that's what the fifth amendment was designed to do.

You know, public, you know, it'd be amazing. It would seem like at this point and unlikely, but maybe Brian wasn't at fault. You know, he's not guilty of anything. He hasn't had a trial. But that's what the fifth amendment is for. Whenever you, when everything else is against you and the public's against you and the fifth amendment, that's, that's kind of what saves you from this trial by, you know, this trial in the, in the public forum.

And, you know, maybe Brian, isn't the best example to use here, just because again, the facts, as we know them, you know, you, you would almost have to assume there's some information that he has of relevance, because if nothing else, he just, he abandoned her to come home in her van. But, but regardless, there's countless, countless individuals who have been, you know, spared from prosecution, despite their innocence by invoking that fifth amendment. And then there's also countless individuals who have probably been incarcerated, you know, wrongly for not invoking that fifth amendment, for trying to speak and for trying to talk to the authorities. And just by the, you know, the unfortunate nature of the fact that there's human error in our criminal justice system. And there's, you know, some individuals that, that may not have, you know, justice at the forefront of their mind and are just looking for a conviction. There's absolutely been people who have suffered by not invoking that right. ISKRA Joe, the bill of rights, the constitution, I think the summary of this is, it's an unfortunate situation, but the constitution is still pretty important.

JOHNSON I think it's safe to say the constitution is still pretty important. And one aspect that we'll touch on briefly too, while we still have some time is, is this whole idea of, you know, crowdsourced investigations and the fact that, you know, you have the FBI asking on Twitter for any kind of assistance they can get. And then you just have a groundswell of support from individuals who just, just kind of pour their time into doing anything they can to kind of break this case and crack it open. And, you know, there's, there's debate about whether or not that's a good thing and whether, you know, bringing all these laymen individuals, just, just everyday Joe, who may not be trained or who may be trained. I'm sure there were some people who have substantial training in things like this, who got involved and just wanted to help out.

But there's a lot of debate over whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But like I said, man, if I go missing, sound the alarm, get everybody on it. Anybody that wants to help, please come looking for me. Well, gentlemen, this case obviously is going to continue and we will probably in our next program talk about it even more. The Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, guys, what's coming up in our final segment? Well, Morgan, I think our final segment, we're going to talk about title theft insurance. What is it? Is it a real thing?

Is it a scam? I think that's what we're going to delve into next. All right. That's coming up on The Outlaw Lawyer. If you want to get in touch with the program, 800-659-1186, 800-659-1186. You can also email questions to the program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We'll try to answer those questions in a future program and always check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Final segment of The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm is where you can find them.

Again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay Arena, 46 combined years experience. And we talk legalese each and every week on The Outlaw Law Year. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.

Guys, you've got one more segment and you're going to get into some real estate scams, title insurance, title theft protection. I'm excited. It's sexy. It is. It is.

It is, Morgan. I don't, and I don't know why, you know, I usually try to take things that come up for my work week, things that come up in the office. And I don't know why this title theft protection insurance came up so much this week, but it did. And so I always assume if I'm getting the question, there's probably other people that have the question, but you know, I think we've said this before, but Whitaker and Hamer, one of our major practice areas is real estate transactions, helping people with the purchase of their home or refinance office buildings. So we do residential and commercial transactions. And as part of those, you get, usually most of the time you're getting some title insurance. And so title insurance protects you from a lot of things. Your lender, if you have a lender or, you know, a mortgage involved, they want to see that that title insurance there. So title insurance is very important, very standardized, something that me and Joseph deal with every day. So the question I got was based on that, you know, we, I guess there's some advertisements that they either go out in the mail or play on the radio or the TV. But I had a couple of clients ask me if that was the same thing as title theft protection insurance.

And the answer is it's not. Title insurance is a very real and useful product for both you as the owner of property and both for your lender. Title theft insurance, I'm not convinced.

I'm not convinced what that actually covers you from in North Carolina. Joe, is this something you've heard about or that's come up in your practice? I'm sorry, Josh, I've been hyperventilating. So I started doing some breathing exercises. I got so excited when we mentioned real estate and I just needed to calm down.

So I'm coming back to earth. All right. The premise, I think the premise, I Googled a couple of title theft, title protection. They kind of go under those names insurance. And I just kind of clicked on the, they were all ads. There was like 10 ads. If you see that many ads for something, then you know, that's becoming a lucrative industry when that many people are advertising for, for your, your click there.

But I can't figure out what they actually provide you. You know, the, in North Carolina, we're a, we're a race state. The first one to the courthouse recording a lien, you know, that's, that's kind of what you'll hear attorneys talk about. And it's very, it's not impossible to, for a scammer to try to record a deed or record a lien that may affect your, your title.

It's, it's possible. Those things are online. If you give me a property address, I can pretty much tell you everything about that property who owned it a hundred years ago, who owns it now, everybody who's had a mortgage, a judgment against them. You know, your divorce, you know, if you get divorced, that's public record. So I can figure out as a, as an attorney who can do a pretty mean title search, I can figure out everything I need to figure out about you and your property.

It's all out there. So as easily as I can do it, a fraudster can do it. You know, Josh, you asked the question of a title theft insurance and I don't, we don't like to make definitive statements here. So I don't want to make a really definitive statement about, you know, the efficacy of title theft insurance, but I will just say that it's hot, hot garbage. I guess that was a statement.

It's funny, Joe. I was, I was looking at one of these websites and they had a quote from, of all people, Newt Gingrich was on their main page here. I guess he was their paid spokesman, but his quote was the type of fraud you really need to worry about is home title fraud, where criminals literally remove you from your home's title. Then they take out loans against your home and leave you in debt. You won't know until late payments or eviction notices arrived. I protect my home with, I won't give you the name of the company, but that was a quote apparently from, from Newt Gingrich, but North Carolina, it just doesn't work that way.

And I, you know, we've been doing this for a while. I think I've only seen one true case where, you know, someone tried to forge a deed, uh, or do something like that. And that was a family member taking advantage of another, of course, another family member, an older family member.

But Joe, I just, I don't see this a lot. And then I don't know, you know, if something like that were to happen, you know, that that's an attorney is going to have to help you fix that or law enforcement. I, I don't know that this insurance really provides anything.

Yeah. I think the only thing that the insurance could provide is they're going to pay an attorney or, you know, have some, somebody who coordinates with law enforcement kind of undertake undoing this, which again, how much, I don't know the cost. I don't know the, the nuances. I don't know what they charge you for it, but, uh, these are things you, you're, you would just, you know, you're going to have to be actively involved in the participation of regardless.

And it's such a low, like you said, how, how often do you see it? It would, you're basically a victim of fraud at this point. And you know, the information is out there, but our system, you know, the, the register of deeds, uh, the way that our state operates and the statutes designed around recordings in general, it makes it very difficult to, to accomplish this.

You know, basically you would have someone who would have to forge your signature and then find a notary that is willing to notarize that signature, uh, and then take it on down to the courthouse. But, but, but when you, when you get into mortgages and then you're talking about so many people that have to be defrauded and so many steps that have to be taken to get to that point that nothing is impossible, anything is possible, but this seems borderline impossible for someone to do. Joe, I live and breathe real estate law, and this is just something that's not even on my radar. I'm not even concerned about it. So I think the summation here is title insurance. Good. Very important to have title theft insurance.

I can't say I'd spend any money on it. Tell that to Newt Gingrich, Josh, send him a letter. All right. That wraps up our super sexy segment on real estate scams, title insurance and title theft protection. If you have any legal questions for the outlaw lawyers, give them a call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. You can also email your question to the program questions at the outlawlawyer.com. We'll get to it in a future program and also visit the website, the outlawlawyer.com.

Another one in the books, guys. Great show. Outlaw lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.