Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
In August 2021, Brian Laundrie murdered his 22-year-old fiancée Gabby Petito during a road trip through the US, before abandoning her body in the Wyoming wilderness.
Today (17 February), harrowing largely unknown details from the case have been released to the public as part of a new addition to Netflix's American Murder docu-series - including a nine-word 'confession' that Brian wrote in a waterproof notebook before taking his own life.
Gabby's disappearance
Aspiring YouTuber Gabby Petito went missing in August 2021 while travelling through the US with her long-term partner, Brian Laundrie.
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In the weeks prior, with hopes of launching a lifestyle content-creating career, she'd quit her job and purchased a van, with the pair setting out on the open road, intending to vlog their journey.
After failing to hear from her for several weeks - aside from a handful of texts which her mother did not believe had been written by her daughter - New York-born Gabby's family launched a missing persons campaign on 11 September that year.
Officers quickly discovered that Brian had returned home to Florida in the van without his fiancée, and that his parents had hired a lawyer.
He maintained at this point that he'd left Gabby at a hotel following a disagreement.
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Around the time that Gabby's disappearance became a fixture in national headlines, her family were also horrified to learn that the couple had endured a run-in with police during their road trip, with a witness claiming to have seen him 'slapping' her.
In heartbreaking police body-cam footage - which also airs in the new documentary - Brian can be seen being transported to a hotel for domestic abuse victims, while Gabby - who was branded the 'aggressor' in their confrontation - is sent on her way in the van. Though no arrests were made.
Several of Gabby's friends - a handful of whom also make appearances in Netflix's latest series - also opened up to Gabby's parents at this time about their concerns for her welfare, believing Brian had previously shown traits of coercive behaviour.
Discovery of Gabby's body
For several weeks, armchair detectives - many of whom had followed Gabby's social media antics for several weeks prior to his disappearance - assisted in the search for the truth.
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One traveller discovered through TikTok that she'd allegedly picked Brian up in her car around the time and location that Gabby was understood to have gone missing.
Another travel-vlogging couple - who were also travelling the same Wyoming area at the time - later looked through their own holiday footage after stumbling across Gabby's case online, believed to have spotted the couple's van in the background of one of their clips.
This narrowed down the search area, and sadly, on 19 September, the FBI discovered human remains in an area of Spread Creek Dispersed Camp.
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After the identity of the remains was confirmed to be Gabby, an autopsy determined that she'd died via 'blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation' three to four weeks prior.
Brian flees
Days after her remains were found - after police discovered that Brian had allegedly sent vast amounts of money from Gabby's account to his after she would have been killed - a warrant was issued for his arrest.
On 17 September, however - two days before Gabby's body was discovered - Brian's parents reported him missing after he failed to return home after a hike in a nearby woods in Florida, claiming not to have seen him since the 13th.
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Following an almost month-long search, his family joined the police after Brian's sister implored him to surrender.
And exactly one month and one day after Gabby's body was discovered in Wyoming, Brian's parents found his remains in an area of Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park that had previously been underwater due to flooding.
"It was approximately a mile from where he had parked his car," FBI Special Agent, Loretta Bush, explains in the documentary. "His belongings were still there, his clothes were still there, his shoes were still there.
"But he had completely decomposed all the way down to the bone."
An autopsy report later determined that Brian had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
A waterproof bag was also discovered close to his remains, which contained a collection of photographs of him and Gabby together, as well as a waterproof notebook that Brian had written in.
"He wrote multiple letters to his family, mostly to say that he loved them and to say goodbye to them," Special Agent Bush continued, adding that the notebook also contained a lengthy, self-written transcript - considered to have been Brian's suicide note.
It began with an address to Gabby herself, with Brain claiming he wished he 'could be talking to you right now', insisting that he 'can't live without her', and would 'always love' her.
Brian then apologised directly to Gabby's family, adding: "I love them. I’d consider her younger siblings my best of friends."
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Towards the end of the note, however, he'd penned an untrue version of the story of Gabby's death, claiming she had become unwell/injured after getting caught up in some ice-cold water.
"I hear a splash and a scream, I could barely see, I couldn’t find her for a moment, shouted her name," Brian began.
"I found her breathing heavily, gasping my name, she was freezing cold. We had just come from the blazing hot national parks in Utah."
He went on to claim he'd 'carried' Gabby 'as far as I could', but that the temperately had already 'dropped to freezing', so he decided to start a fire.
"She had a small bump on her forehead that eventually got larger," Brian claimed. "Her feet hurt, her wrist hurt but she was freezing, shaking violently. While carrying her, she continually made sounds of pain.
"Laying next to her she said little, lapsing between violent shakes, gasping in pain, begging for an end to her pain.
"She would fall asleep and I would shake her awake, fearing she shouldn’t close her eyes if she had a concussion. She would wake in pain, start her whole painful cycle again while furious that I was the one waking her.
"She wouldn’t let me cross the creek, thought like me that the fire would go out in her sleep and she’d freeze. I don’t know the extent of Gabby’s injuries, only that she was in extreme pain."
Brian's testimony concluded with an eerie, nine-word claim that was interpreted as his confession to her murder.
"I ended her life, I thought it was merciful," Brian wrote, going on to describe the move as a 'mistake' that he made in 'panic' and 'shock'.
"But from the moment I decided, took away her pain, I know I couldn’t go on without her," he added, claiming he'd ended his life because he'd 'lost our whole future together'.
FBI Denver Division stated: "The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito.
"The FBI's primary focus throughout the investigation was to bring justice to Gabby and her family."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, you can talk in confidence 24 hours a day to the national domestic violence helpline Refuge on 0808 2000 247.
Topics: True Crime, Crime, US News, News, Netflix, Documentaries, TV And Film, Life, True Life
Rhianna Benson