Why did he do it?
That’s been the question on everybody’s mind since the horrific murder of 22-year old Gabby Petito back in August of 2021. And unfortunately, we’ll probably never know why it happened, because her murderer and fiancé, Brian Laundrie, was found dead a month later in the Florida swamp.
It’s a story that gripped the nation after it was reported that Petito was missing after a cross-country road trip with Laundrie. And when Laundrie returned home without Petito, and he immediately lawyered up and eventually disappeared himself, he immediately became the prime suspect in her disappearance.
The suspicion only grew after Petito’s body was found in the Grand Teton National Forest in September of 2021, and it was announced that her death had been a homicide caused by strangulation.
Laundrie of course fled after going back home to Florida, while his parents Roberta and Chris refused to talk, setting off a month long manhunt that included Dog the Bounty Hunter, along with both federal and state law enforcement.
The search finally came to an end after Laundrie’s body was found in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in North Port, Florida. And along with his body, authorities also found a note confessing to the murder – sort of – claiming that Petito had fallen and injured herself and said she was “begging for an end to her pain.”
Investigators dismissed Laundrie’s story, noting that his admission didn’t match the evidence after ruling that Petito had died from blunt force trauma and strangulation. And bodycam footage from a police encounter when the couple was stopped in Moab, Utah days before the murder painted a troubling picture of the relationship, leading many to believe that Laundrie was both physically and emotionally abusive to Petito.
Well three and a half years after the murder, a new Netflix documentary has been released on the case, shedding new light on the relationship between Petito and Laundrie. And viewers believe it also provides a possible motive for the murder after all this time.
In American Murder: Gabby Petito, text messages between the couple paint Laundrie as controlling over Petito, once even getting angry over her getting a job at Taco Bell during their relationship. And in an interview with an ex-boyfriend of Petito, he reveals for the first time that she had informed him of her plans to break up with Laundrie shortly before her murder.
On August 22, while Laundrie had flown back to Florida to retrieve some of his belongings and clean out a storage unit, the ex-boyfriend who is identified only as Jackson says that he received a text from Gabby after her and Laundrie had gotten into an argument. She asked to talk to him, but said that she was only alone until the next day.
Jackson called Gabby, and he says that after they hung up, he “got the vibe that she may have still needed somebody to talk to.” So he reached back out, and that’s when he says she “hinted at the fact” that her and Laundrie had gotten into an argument. And she also said she had a plan and wanted to leave Laundrie.
According to Jackson:
“From the sound of her voice, and the way she was saying it, I think that she wasn’t sure of what he would do, or what he could do. I think she was wanting to get away, but just didn’t know how to do it.”
He says that he later received another call from Gabby, but he was at work and wasn’t able to answer. And that turned out to be the same day that Petito was last seen alive, on security footage from a grocery store in Jackson, Wyoming.
It wasn’t long after that when her mother, Nicole Schmidt, heard from Gabby the last time. In that text exchange, Gabby said that Brian had gone camping in the woods and that she was driving the van to a campsite. And she also mentioned that he had told her she could have the van if she paid him for it – prompting her mom to ask whether the couple was breaking up.
Gabby denied that they were splitting up, but said that she could make more money from her content as a solo female “van lifer.”
It’s not known whether Gabby actually went through with her plan to break up with Laundrie – though as the documentary and many on social media speculate, that may have been what set him off and caused him to murder her.
Unfortunately we’ll never know the truth, because the only two people who know what happened that day are dead. But the documentary certainly sheds new light on the days and weeks before her tragic death – and gives us at least a glimpse into what she was going through before her life was cut all too short.
@theussun Gabby Petito’s haunting vow to ex-boyfriend Jackson right before murder #gabbypetito #gabbypetitocase
The post Explosive New Netflix Documentary Sheds Light On Possible Motive For Murder Of Gabby Petito first appeared on Whiskey Riff.