Kriti Mehrotra
As a documentary series living up to its title in every way conceivable, Netflix’s ‘American Murder: Gabby Petito’ can only be described as equal parts baffling, harrowing, and unfortunate. That’s because it carefully chronicles the way a young couple’s cross-country road trip in a van ended in tragedy as domestic violence took over to shatter all their possible hopes for the future. It was Brian Christopher Laundrie who killed his fiance, Gabrielle “Gabby” Venora Petito, in a national forest in Wyoming before taking his own life less than a month later in the Florida wilderness.
Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito’s Relationship Was Far From Perfect
Although Brian Laundrie first came across Gabby Petito while attending Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York, it wasn’t until early 2019 that they became seriously romantically involved. However, their initial few months weren’t really sunshine and roses as he decided to move back to his home state of Florida to be closer to family, just for her to follow suit by December. It didn’t matter to her that they had been together for merely nine months by this point because she genuinely wanted to be with him, unaware she reportedly wouldn’t get along with his mother despite them living together.
According to Gabby’s best friend, Rosa Davis, Brian was allegedly also controlling, manipulative, as well as toxic toward her, which she believed was to deliberately hinder her independence. She has even asserted that he kept tabs on her at all times and didn’t support her dreams of becoming an influencer, likely because he was afraid his domestic violence would be caught on camera. Nevertheless, she didn’t explicitly say anything to her friend back then because not only did she not want to judge their relationship without cause, but Gabby also seemed to be happily in love.
Yet, things had turned by the time August 12, 2021, rolled around as a witness dialed 911 to report a couple fighting in front of the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah. As per the witness, the male had slapped his partner twice before they drove off together in a white van, just for another witness to then report the same duo arguing in their vehicle. They were later identified as Gabby and Brian, who were just over a month into their cross-country road trip. Officials separated them for the evening, but they remained in touch and chose to leave Utah together within hours.
Brian Laundrie Killed His Girlfriend in Late August
It was around 2:30 pm on August 27, 2021, when Gabby and Brian were last seen together in a Whole Foods store in Jackson, Wyoming, following which they drove to the Bridger–Teton Forest. Nobody knows for certain what transpired in the ensuing 48 hours, but according to court records, he had called his parents on August 29 to state his fiance was “gone” and that he probably needed a lawyer. The 23-year-old then hitchhiked back to their van before driving it all the way to his parent’s home in North Port, Florida, in a hurry, where he holed himself for the next couple of weeks.
Brian was secretly back under his parents’ roof by September 1, 2021, yet neither he nor they responded to any of Gabby’s loved ones’ calls and texts asking where she was in the ensuing days. Instead, they went camping at Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County for a couple of days, on the 6th and 7th, four days after which the 22-year-old’s mother officially reported her missing. It was on the evening of September 11 that it came to light that Brian was already at home, resulting in the start of an investigation into Gabby’s disappearance and his being named a person of interest.
Little did anyone know Brian himself would be reported missing by his parents on September 17, with them claiming that they had last seen him four days prior when he left home to go on a hike. That’s when an extensive search for both him and Gabby began, only for her to be found lying in a fetal position deep in Bridger–Teton National Forest in Wyoming two days later, on the 19th. As per her autopsy report, she suffered blunt force trauma on both her head as well as neck before being manually strangled to death, making it clear that her manner of death was homicide.
Brian Laundrie Died By Suicide Over His Own Actions
It was on October 20, 2021, that Brian’s skeletal remains were recovered from the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in North Port, Florida. He had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and there was a letter in the notebook near his body wherein he admitted to killing Gabby. Within it, he claimed her death was a tragedy, asserting she had fallen into a body of water while they were in the national forest and was barely breathing when he pulled her out. So, he penned, since she was freezing cold, couldn’t tell him where she was hurt, and was continuously “gasping in pain, begging for an end” between violent shakes, he “ended her life. I thought it was merciful.” However, her autopsy report had already confirmed she had been violently killed.
Read More: Brian Laundrie’s Family: Where Are They Now?
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