(Image via people.com)
Staff Writer: Gwen Pichette
Email: gpichette@umassd.edu
A groundbreaking documentary of the murder that stunned the nation back in 2021 premiered on February 17th on Netflix.
The docuseries “American Murder: Gabby Petito” follows the tragic case of the 22-year old vlogger who went missing on a cross-country roadtrip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. She later turned up dead.
Three episodes long, the docuseries followed Gabby’s early life, all the way up to the aftermath of the murder. Through interviews with friends, family members, body-cam footage, her own social media posts, and eye witness accounts, it creates a comprehensive look of this case for the very first time.
The episodes effectively capture the progression of events and how quickly the tides turn.
The first is titled, “We Bought a Van.” The second: “Where is Gabby?” and the final episode, “Burn After Reading.”
Perhaps most notably, the docuseries includes the chilling footage of a domestic dispute the couple had in Moab, Utah on August 12th, mere weeks before she was murdered. Recordings reveal a caller reported that Brian had slapped Gabby, which was what prompted the traffic stop.
This footage has since reignited outrage on how domestic abuse cases are handled. The footage shows how police on the scene deemed Gabby to be the primary aggressor of the dispute despite eyewitness accounts of her abuse and of her visibly crying and shaken.
Instead of taking further action, the officers merely advised that the two separate for the night. Gabby was given the keys to her van, and Brian was taken with police to a hotel for domestic abuse victims for the night.
The cops’ commentary on the dispute was also featured, including a statement from one officer as he debated with another officer about whether they should be charged with domestic assault.
“How far do you want to go with this?” he asked. “The reason they don’t give us discretion on these things is because too many times women who are at risk want to go back to their abusers and then they end up getting worse and worse treatment and then end up getting killed…but I don’t have a crystal ball.”
It’s agonizing to watch in hindsight, as Gabby herself would be murdered by her abuser less than a month later.
Brian Laundrie would return home to his parents home in North Port Florida without Gabby in sight. Shocking body-cam footage shows Brian Laundrie’s parents refusing to answer questions about her whereabouts, which further fueled accusations that they obstructed evidence and helped cover up the murder.
The Laundries instead directed police to their attorney.
Gabby was officially reported missing by her parents on September 11th. Her body was found on September 19th at Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Her autopsy confirmed her cause of death to be strangulation.
But just two days before her body was discovered, Brian Laundrie went missing.
He was found dead a month later in October. His cause of death was ruled to be suicide, and he left a note confessing to the murder.
His parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, have since responded to the documentary through their attorney who wholeheartedly rejected the facts presented in it. “The documentary contained many inaccuracies, incorrect juxtapositions of timelines, and misstatements and omissions of fact — perhaps deliberate to capture their ‘truth,’ perhaps due to simple error.”
The docuseries also highlighted the stark contrast in media coverage between cases involving missing white women and those involving indigenous people along with other marginalized groups.
Upon hearing such discourse, Gabby Petito’s father, Joe Petito, first admits in the documentary that he reacted negatively.
“When I heard that, my initial reaction wasn’t a positive one,” Joe says in the documentary. “Saying Gabby’s color was the reason, you know, I was taken aback by that. But then I started to look into it.”
More than 700 indigenous women have gone missing over the last 10 years in Wyoming where Gabby was found. Yet these cases receive minimal coverage, many never even making it to the news at all.
Another clip from the series is a news anchor talking about the disparity. “This isn’t saying that Gabby Petitio is not important,” the anchor says. “But what it is saying is that there is an overrepresentation in media when white women go missing, and an under representation in media when black, brown, and indigenous women go missing.”
The Gabby Petito Foundation, a non-profit organization created by the Petito family to assist victims of domestic violence and missing persons, has since collaborated with organizations like the Black and Missing Foundation and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives organization.
As the documentary’s closing scene plays—a clip of Gabby playfully running along the beach and dodging waves—a quote appears on the screen, capturing the extensive attention her case received from around the nation.
“On August 19th, 2021, Gabby Petitio launched her Van Life Youtube Channel and published her first and only video. Before her murder, Gabby’s video had less than 500 views. Today, Gabby’s video has over 7 million views.”
Since the launching of the Netflix documentary, her one and only YouTube video has climbed to a staggering 10 million views.
The docuseries concludes with a sobering statistic about domestic abuse in America, stating, “In the United States, nearly half of all women will experience intimate partner violence at some point in their lives.”
This is followed by telling viewers they can find information and resources about domestic violence at wannatalkaboutit.com.
“You shouldn’t fear the ones you love.” —Jim Schmidt, Gabby Petito’s stepfather.