#wearpinkfortalia

[beulahsapphire]

This is my wife’s childhood friend, Talia Petoia.

On the night of March 10, 2023, Talia was shot in the chest by her abusive boyfriend, Tyler Laughter, who claims the incident happened while he was cleaning his gun. Talia was rushed to the hospital, but the doctors couldn’t save her; she died that night.

One week later, before the autopsy was even completed, Tyler was charged - with involuntary manslaughter. He was put in jail on a $20k bond, only 10% of which needed to be paid to bail him out. He was free within hours, having not spent a single night in jail.

There’s been very little media about this case, despite the best efforts of Talia’s friends and family. In fact, when Talia’s mother contacted a reporter at a local news station several days after the shooting to ask why there had been no coverage yet, she was informed that the station had reached out to the sheriff’s office about Talia’s death only to be told that it was an accident and that there was “nothing to report.”

We’ve been calling the DA to encourage him to escalate this case to the SBI, given the seeming lack of care given to it by local authorities and the fact that the chief deputy is related to the shooter, but so far, no progress has been made.

There’s a lot of other fucked up shit going on with this case - more than I can type in one post - but suffice to say that Tyler Laughter is a dangerous man. Talia was not the first woman he abused - more have come forward in the last few weeks - and I’m afraid that that she won’t be that last.

Ways to help, for those who are interested:

Talia’s family started a fundraiser to higher private investigators and cover legal fees. Any leftover after meeting those goals will go to a scholarship in her name.

Contact the DA. Voicemails left after hours and emails are good too, if you don’t want to actually talk.

Even just reblogging this post and/or interacting with the other social media pages and hashtags we’ve created for this helps. We’re still asking the authorities to do the right thing and give this case the attention it deserves, but if they won’t do what we ask, we want to embarrass them into acting. Make this case such a big deal and so widely known that they are shamed into doing their jobs.

Linktree with the fundraiser, contact info/scripts for the DA, and other social media HERE.

#police corruption #justice #intimate partner violence #justicefortaliapetoia #wearpinkfortalia #probably no one will see this #but i have to try #cw: death #cw: dv #cw: ipv #update: fuck it i’m blazing it