July 2, 2021, Gabrielle Venora Petito left on a trip around the U.S. with her boyfriend/Fiance, Brian Laundire. The pair planned to leave Florida for Kansas, Colorado, and Utah. Gabby’s body would be found September 19, her cause of death, strangulation.
Gabby Petito was a social media influencer and was hoping to gain fame from her “dream” cross-country road trip.
Her mother Nichole Shmidt described her as a very artistic, creative, free spirit “She just wanted to see and do everything”. Gabby had a shining smile and a wonderful free personality.
On August 17, a witness calls 911 and reports a man slapping a woman, the two run up and down the sidewalk and the man slaps her again and they drive off together. The witness said after getting into the car Gabby started punching laundire in the arm, and they drove away.
After police located the vehicle driving “they pulled the car over and found Petito Crying in the passenger’s seat. Body cam footage will later capture Petitio saying this…
”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 said, “I’m sorry that I’m so mean,” because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I can get frustrated. Not like mean to 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”
August 25 Gabby called her mother for the last time and then posted several photos from Utah Grand Teton and Yellowstone National park.
An eye witness would later recall seeing the couple at a restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The witness described Brian as being “aggressive” towards the staff over a money dispute. The couple left and Gabby later returned to the restaurant in tears to apologize for her fiance’s behavior.
Another witness contacted the FBI to report a slow moving van with a ‘Generic” white man in the driver’s seat “acting weird”. He parked in the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area on August 26, 27, and most likely the 28.
A young woman stated that she had picked Laundrie up around the Jackson Lake Dam area around 6:00 and dropped him off at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping entrance; the witness reported that Brian was “antsy” throughout the whole ordeal.
On September 1 Brian returned to his parents home. And on the 6 and 7 Brian and his parents left on a camping trip at Fort de Soto park.
September 11, after not hearing from Gabby, her mother filed a missing persons report. Four days later Laundrie is pronounced a person of interest.
On September 19 Gabby Petito’s remains were found at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area in Wyoming. Her cause of death was determined to be “blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation”.
On October 20 Laundries’ remains were found at Myakkahatchee Creek, after previously turning himself in and later hiding from the police. His cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. At the scene a journal was found written by Laundrie confessing to the murder of his Fiance, Gabby Petitio.
Resources Used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Gabby_Petito#Last_reported_activities_and_sightings
