The case of Gabby Petito captured the attention of many people worldwide in 2021. Gabby was a 22-year-old traveling and blogging with her 23-year-old fiancé, Brian Laundrie. The two had only been dating a year before Brian proposed to Gabby. After the proposal, things started to get a little rocky, and this was when they started traveling alone.
In July of 2021, right after their engagement, Gabby decided to buy a 2012 van. This started her career of trying to become a successful YouTube vlogger and for her and her fiancé to experience the world and the “van life.” From the videos she uploaded, she seemed like she had the perfect life, but in reality, she would not know what was coming.
In the Netflix documentary “American Murder: Gabby Petito,” her best friend, Rose Davis, said that when they would hang out, he would just watch them, and he was always jealous when Gabby would hang out with Rose. This brought some questions to Rose. She started to get a weird feeling about Brian and how he would treat her. She also noticed that he had a certain possessiveness over Gabby. Rose also said that he wanted Gabby to feel bad for hanging out with her, and he enjoyed her depending on him.
In August, police in Moab, Utah, got a complaint that there was a domestic dispute between the couple. In the documentary, they had bodycam footage of Gabby crying, and the officers described her as being in distress. There were no charges filed; however, they took Brian to a hotel room while Gabby was supposed to sleep in the van so they could have some time apart.
Ten days after talking to the officers in Moab, Gabby and Brian got into an argument, and she checked herself into a hotel room, and while she was by herself, she called her ex-boyfriend, Jackson. She told him that she wanted to get out of the relationship, but she didn’t know how or what he would do to her.
After their argument, Gabby didn’t reply to her family for ten days, and this is when they grew concerned about her safety. On September 11, her family reported her as a missing person. The case quickly gained national attention. Finally, her family discovered that Brian was back in town at his parents’ house with Gabby’s van but refused to talk to the police about the investigation and hired an attorney.
A tragic discovery was made on September 19 when Gabby’s remains were found in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. The later autopsy discovered that she was strangled to death. Many people were concerned about the way Brain parents were acting about the whole situation. After they found Gabby’s remains, Brian told his parents he was going on a hike and never returned. He was hiking somewhere in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. Thirty-seven days after Brian was reported missing, his parents found his body with a letter next to it admitting he was the one who killed Gabby, claiming it was a bizarre accident. However, no criminal charges have been filed against the Laundrie family to this day. Gabby’s family has since started a foundation in her honor to help other victims of domestic violence.
