Killing of Gabby Petito

In August 2021, 22-year-old American travelling vlogger Gabrielle Venora Petito was killed by her fiancé Brian Christopher Laundrie while they were traveling together on a vanlife journey across the United States. The trip was planned to last for four months and began on July 2, 2021, but Petito disappeared on August 27.

After Petito's disappearance, Laundrie raised suspicion when he drove the van from Wyoming back to his parents' Florida home and refused to discuss her whereabouts. He was deemed a person of interest in the case and an arrest warrant was issued on charges of his making unauthorized withdrawals using her debit card. He left his home on September 13 and was reported missing four days later.

On September 19, Petito's remains were found in Wyoming's Bridger–Teton National Forest. An autopsy found that she was killed by blunt-force injuries to her head and neck and manual strangulation. After a month of speculation around Laundrie's whereabouts, and an extended search of the area around his home, his skeletal remains were discovered in Florida's Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on October 20. It was confirmed by an autopsy on November 23 that Laundrie had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and the FBI later announced that he had admitted to killing Petito in his notebook, which was found near his remains.

The case gained widespread attention due to the couple's documenting of their travels on social media, leaked police body camera video footage, 9-1-1 emergency dispatch call recordings, eyewitness accounts, the actions of Laundrie's parents, and the extensive media coverage.

Gabby Petito

Gabrielle Venora Petito (March 19, 1999 – c. August 27, 2021) was born and raised in Blue Point, New York. She had six younger siblings and half-siblings. In 2013, Petito and her step-brothers appeared in a music video to raise awareness about American gun violence in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In 2017, she graduated from Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York, where she met Brian Christopher Laundrie. From September 2017 to January 2019, she lived in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, working as a hostess and in the kitchen of a restaurant in nearby Wilmington. She applied to Cape Fear Community College, but did not attend.

Petito began dating Laundrie in March 2019, and moved in with him and his parents in North Port, Florida. The couple worked at a Publix in North Port, where she was a pharmacy technician and he was in the grocery department. They quit their jobs at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In late 2019 and early 2020, the couple embarked on a cross-country drive from New York to California. Along the way, they visited Las Vegas, Yosemite National Park, Pismo Beach, and other points of interest. In March 2020, Petito celebrated her 21st birthday in Nokomis, Florida. She and Laundrie visited Sope Creek, Georgia in June 2020, and the two were engaged the following month.

In December 2020, Petito purchased a 2012 Ford Transit Connect van converted into a camper, in which the couple would take their next cross-country trip. To save money for the trip, she began working 50-hour weeks at Taco Bell and as a nutritionist while Laundrie took a job at an organic juice bar. Petito documented her life and travels on social media sites such as YouTube and Instagram, where she described her interests as "art, yoga, and veggies".

Disappearance

Road trip

On June 17, 2021, Petito and Laundrie visited her native Blue Point for her brother's graduation ceremony. On July 2, 2021, they left Blue Point in the Ford Transit Connect van for their trip. Later that month, they visited Monument Rocks, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Mystic Hot Springs, and Canyonlands National Park.

Domestic disturbance incident

On August 12, 2021, a witness called 9-1-1 to report that a couple (later identified as Laundrie and Petito) were fighting in front of the Moonflower Community Cooperative in Moab, Utah. The caller said they saw a man slap a woman, after which the man and woman ran up and down the sidewalk, then the man hit the woman again before they drove off together. Another witness described the incident to police as looking like Petito and Laundrie were talking "aggressively" and that Petito "was punching him in the arm". The witness said it looked like Laundrie was trying to leave Petito behind and take her phone with him. Before they drove off together, she climbed into the driver's seat, moved over into the passenger's seat so he could drive, and asked him, "Why do you have to be so mean?"

Officers from the Moab City Police Department (MCPD) identified the van driving erratically near the entrance to Arches National Park and conducted a traffic stop. They found Petito sobbing in the passenger's seat, with police body camera footage showing that she then told officers:

Yeah, I don't know if some days, I have really bad OCD. I was just cleaning and straightening up, back in the... I was apologizing to him and saying, "I'm sorry that I'm so mean," because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I can get really frustrated. Not like mean towards him. I just like, I just, my vibe is, I'm in a bad mood. And, I was just saying I'm sorry if I'm in a bad mood. I just... I had so much work I was doing on my computer this morning. And, I just now quit my job to travel across the country and I'm trying to start a blog. I have a blog. So I've been building my website. I've been really stressed and he doesn't really believe that I could do any of it, so, we've just been fighting all morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before.

Petito first downplayed the physical altercation; after the officer pointed out marks on her arm and face and told her to "just be honest", she said that Laundrie "kept telling [her] to shut up" and "grabbed [her] face" which had caused an injury.

Laundrie told the officer, "I said, 'Let's just take a breather and let's not go anywhere, and just calm down for a minute.' She was getting worked up. And then she had her phone and was trying to get the keys from me. I was just trying to [...] I know I shouldn't push her. I was just trying to push her away to go, 'Let's take a minute and step back and breathe and see.' She got me with her phone."

Petito told the officer that she hit Laundrie first, and asked the officers to not separate them. In his report, one of the officers wrote, "At no point in my investigation did Gabrielle stop crying, breathing heavily, or compose a sentence without needing to wipe away tears, wipe her nose, or rub her knees with her hands. The male tried to create distance by telling Gabby to take a walk to calm down. [...] She did not want to be separated from the male and began slapping him. He grabbed her face and pushed her back as she pressed upon him and the van."

Neither Petito nor Laundrie wanted to press charges as a result of the incident, which was characterized by police as a mental breakdown rather than domestic violence, which would have required an arrest. The police separated the couple, arranging for Laundrie to spend a night at the Bowen Motel in Moab, and for Petito to stay in the van.

The MCPD later investigated whether or not its officers handled the case in accordance with the department's policies, and its chief of police took a leave of absence during the investigation.

Last reported activities and sightings

On August 17, Laundrie took a flight from Salt Lake City to Tampa, Florida, leaving Petito behind. Petito spent several days at a Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel near Salt Lake City International Airport, according to staff, and checked out on August 24. It was later explained by the Laundrie family attorney that he made the trip to "obtain some items and empty and close the storage unit to save money as they contemplated extending the road trip". Laundrie returned on August 23 to rejoin Petito and continue the trip.

Petito's mother said that she last spoke to her daughter on August 25 and had been told that the couple were traveling from Utah to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. On August 25, the final post was made on Petito's Instagram account, which consisted of photos of herself taken in front of a butterfly mural outside a restaurant in Ogden, Utah.

A witness said that, on August 27 between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. she saw Laundrie and Petito together at the Merry Piglets Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Per the witness, Laundrie was "aggressive" and had an argument (apparently regarding money) with the manager, waitress, and hostess. The witness said she later saw Petito return to the restaurant, crying and apologizing for Laundrie's behavior. Restaurant staff confirmed via Instagram that the couple were indeed there.