Episode 28: Gabby Petito

Listen in as we go through the Gabby Petito case thoroughly and discuss everything that happened.

Transcript

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Hey, divas and dudes. I'm Sarah. Welcome back to your Deadly Divas True Crime Podcast. And I'm Tina, and thank you, as always, for joining us. And don't forget to also join us on TikTok and Facebook if you haven't already. And as you probably know, we cover a different true crime story every week. And this week, we are diving into the case of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. So let's dive into it. I actually found 18 TV documentaries on this story, and at least three movies. Wow. But just FYI, my references for this podcast are An American Murder: Gabby Petito, which you can find on Netflix; The Murder of Gabby Petito: Truth, Lies and Social Media on Peacock; The Murder of Gabby Petito: What Really Happened on HBO; and a new series called #Homicide, they cover her in season one, episode one, and that is on Prime Video. And at that point, I was like, "I don't wanna get overwhelmed." I'd already had some contradicting facts. Right. I added on the #Homicide as it seemed to be the most recent. Mm-hmm. All right. So Gabby was born in 1999 in Long Island, New York, to Nicole and Joe. She was their only child together. They actually divorced when she was just a baby. She was just six months old. But it was a really civil divorce, and they all remain focused on co-parenting Gabby, and both parents remarried when she was young, and all four parents adored Gabby. They actually seemed to have great relationships all around. Mm-hmm. They did. They seemed like a loving, close family. Right, and they very much worked together on this case, too. Mm-hmm. And still do. Yeah. Uh, they all describe her as outgoing, loud, adventurous, just a ball of fun. And in high school, she was really interested in art, and that's where she met Brian Laundrie, who was also into art, and he was friends with some people in her friend group. And they both say it was love at first sight. At first, she told her parents they were just friends. And when they met Brian, they thought that he was a little awkward and quiet, but overall, they liked him, and he was also interested in art, just like Gabby. Then one day, Gabby told them she wanted to move to Florida with Brian, and it was no longer a secret that they were dating, and she left for Florida the next day. Wow. "Hey, I wanna move to Florida," the next day, "Bye." Bye. And that seems to be the main thing that the parents were concerned about in the beginning, was just how fast everything moved. Right. So they actually moved to Florida to be closer to Brian's family, and they stayed with Brian's parents. According to Gabby's parents, though, Brian's mom was kind of jealous of the amount of time her son spent with Gabby compared to with her. Hmm. And at one time, Gabby's parents received confirmation from the post office that Gabby had changed her address back to their house. So they called her and said, "Are you planning to move home?" But she claimed she didn't initiate the change, and she actually suspected it was Brian's mom that had done it. Wow. Yeah, talk about hint. Wow. So Gabby became best friends with a girl named Rose through an app, who she introduced to Brian. So it seems once she moved to Florida, she distanced herself from all her family and friends, so she'd, like, gone to apps to look for people to hang out with and became really close with Rose. And when Rose and Gabby were alone together, they had a great time, but when Brian tagged along, he was very weird. And according to Rose, he would just, like, hang back and watch them. That's a red flag. That's creepy. And one day, when they were out camping,, just Brian and Gabby, even though he didn't have a ring, Brian proposed to Gabby, who accepted. But her parents found out about the engagement on Facebook, and they were kinda disappointed that he hadn't asked them first and that he didn't have a ring. Right. So when Gabby's dad and stepmom visited them in Florida, Brian's parents wanted nothing to do with them, which they thought was very odd. Their kids were engaged to each other, and they were not even invited around to meet the family while they were visiting the area. Gabby spent most of her time in their hotel room with them or doing, whatever they were doing. And for any young women out there, girls, grown-ass women, whatever, if you're dating a guy, if you're married to a man that tries to isolate you and won't let you spend time with anybody else on your own, that is controlling, and that is abusive behavior. Yeah, this is definitely the start of the isolation that he was trying to get. But Gabby seemed happy, and that's all that really mattered to her parents. But her dad and his wife decided to move to Florida to actually be closer to Gabby. So I wonder if that was due to them- Right being concerned Brian and Gabby decided to do some traveling before they got married, and they purchased a van. Gabby's dream was to have a successful YouTube channel, and she felt that traveling across the country living in a van would make for a great video blog. Brian, however, was not as passionate about the blog, and often voiced his doubts to Gabby. They downsized all their belongings and moved into the van. To save money for the trip, Gabby worked at a Taco Bell, which Brian hated. He even called her mom to tell her that Gabby was hanging out with the wrong crowd, and he often sent her text messages calling her names and saying he was crying and generally just trying to make her feel bad about not being with him. We are five minutes in, and I have already counted five red flags from this man. Red flags. Red flag alert, right. He was ready to get her away from her job and her close friend Rose and in a position where he had her all to himself, and so they left for the road trip early. Ugh. And I kinda see what happened. She was the one passionate about the road trip. He wasn't so passionate about that, but he saw that as an opportunity to have her to himself- Mm-hmm and in total control. So he was like, "Oh, let's leave early. We're ready," and she was so excited about going. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. I think that was his motive. So they stopped at Gabby's parents' house, so this is Long Island again, so their first trip was, Florida to Long Island, to show them the van and say goodbye, which actually turned out to be the last time they would see their daughter. Mm. And her mom says she will never forget that last hug. Oh, man. She says now she looks back on it, and she felt something weird, like it was a long hug that dragged out, and she felt that Gabby was nervous or something, but she put it down to just the fact that they were starting on this adventure. Right. But of course, hindsight, and after something like this happens, you always look back and say, "What did I miss?" And your mother's intuition. Uh-huh They even said to Brian, "You take care of her and keep her safe." And he said, "I will." Mm. They started making the video blog of their adventures, which was definitely something Gabby felt more comfortable doing than Brian. She wanted to eventually be able to make a living doing it. Brian thought the blog was stupid, and Rose always speculated that Brian was against it in case any of the arguments got caught on camera. Mm. The longer they were gone, the less Gabby spoke to her friends. She kept in contact with her mom while they were traveling, almost daily, and on August 12th, she sent her mom a picture of her face all bloodied up, and she was crying. And she told her mom that Brian and her had gotten into an argument. Well, her mom obviously freaks out and calls the police department where Gabby and Brian are currently staying, who told her, "Well, somebody else has actually already called 911 on them." You don't get a bloody face from an argument. And you don't send it to your mom unless you're crying for help. Right. So this was after they had been on the road for 41 days, and they were in Utah, and somebody had called 911 to report witnessing abuse between a couple. They stated they saw a male slapping and hitting a female before they both got into a van and drove off. So the police locate the van, and they pull over Brian and Gabby, and they have Gabby get out of the van so they can interview them separately. And apparently, that's standard. It's to make sure you separate a couple so one's not, afraid of talking in front of the other. Mm-hmm. So Brian claims that Gabby often gets worked up and swings at him, and he would try to push her away. The argument was about him getting dirt in the van, which Gabby always tried to keep social media posting worthy. Though you can see the back of the van on the body cam footage, and it looks nothing like the clean, tidy, organized van that we see on her posts. Right. Gabby was crying, uh, when they pulled them over, and the police asked her why. She says they were having an argument, and Brian was telling her to calm down. So they put Gabby in the back of the police car to question her more, and they ask Brian to step out of the van also. And they notice scratches on his face, and they ask him, "How did you get those?" And he says that while they were arguing, he was trying to push her away, and she, quote, "Got me with her phone," and indicates his face. They also notice recent injuries to Gabby's face and arm, and ask if Brian hit her, and she says his backpack hit her unintentionally as they were getting into the van. So they tell her a witness saw her being hit by Brian and asked her if that was true, but all she says is, "I hit him first." Mm. So the police mention that they saw the van hit the curb and ask if they had been drinking, and Gabby says, "No, we don't drink." But she does admit to being physical towards Brian. It seems there may have been aggression on both sides, but Gabby only admits her part in it, and Brian also only admits Gabby's part in it. So they tell Brian, you are the victim of physical assault, and they even consider charging Gabby, but ultimately decide just to separate them for the night instead, leaving Gabby with the van and putting Brian up in a hotel overnight, and they are told not to contact each other for 24 hours. One of my after show notes is I wanted to discuss why on earth they would leave a young girl by herself in a van in the middle of nowhere overnight. This was negligence by those cops, period, point blank, and I wanna discuss it as well. Yeah. I mean, there is certain things that they did do according to procedure that wasn't their fault, and it's definitely an after show discussion. But they have to use their discretion, and they did not use their discretion or common sense here, in my opinion. Yeah. So at one point when talking to Brian about him being the victim of domestic abuse, they actually tell him, we have to act on these things even if someone does not want to press charges, because many victims of domestic abuse will keep going back to their abuser, and it only ends up getting worse, sometimes even killed Hmm. Foreshadowing Yes. The police talk to them for almost an hour, and from the footage, we can see that Brian is laughing and smiling, and that Gabby is upset and crying. And at one time, Brian tells the police that he doesn't have a phone, but he is clearly seen holding one in the body cam footage. The police take Brian to his free hotel room, courtesy of Safe Haven, which is a local initiative used by local police for victims of domestic abuse. Again, he's still laughing about all this. This makes me so infuriated that they put him up in the hotel, and they sent her on her way, this vulnerable young woman, in a van. Alone. Like, I'm just... Ugh In the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So 10 days after this incident, Gabby's ex-boyfriend, Jackson, receives a text from her telling him that they had had another argument, her and Brian. Brian had flown home to empty out a storage unit, and Gabby had stayed in a hotel while he was gone. Once he received the text, Jackson called Gabby and chatted to her for a bit, and she tells Jackson that she wants to leave Brian, but he got the impression that she was kinda scared to do so. She also continues to Snapchat with Jackson after Brian gets back, and they continue their journey. On August 27th, at 2:11 PM, they are caught on video footage shopping at a Whole Foods in Jackson, Wyoming, and it's actually the last footage anyone ever sees of Gabby still alive. Mm. During some text message conversations with her mom, Gabby says Brian is camping in the woods while she was sleeping in the van, and she suggested that she had offered to pay him his half of the value of the van, to which her mom asks, "Are you breaking up?" But Gabby just laughs it off as a joke. Mm. On August 29th, the lady named Norma Jean, who's a local, drives past Brian walking down the road hitchhiking alone and offers him a ride. He states that he needs a ride to go see his fiancée, who's working on a blog, and she drops him off at the gates of a campsite. On August 30th, Gabby's mom receives a text message from Gabby's phone saying, "Can you help Stan?" Which was her grandfather's name, but she never called him by that name, so she thought the text was very weird. All right. Her mom texts her back and gets no reply. She texts again on September 1st and 2nd and still gets no response, and also notices that there are no new social media posts. She tries to reassure herself that they probably just don't have service where they are. In fact, the last post was very strange insofar as it said, "Happy Halloween," and she's holding a crocheted pumpkin, but it's August, and none of her usual hashtags were included. So by September 9th, she asks Gabby's dad, "Have you heard from her?" But he also has not. And Gabby's friend Rose is also concerned. She actually thinks that Gabby and Brian may both be missing. Gabby's parents reach out to Brian's family, but nobody will respond to them, and in fact, Brian's mom even blocks her on Facebook. Wow. Yeah. He would start really freaking out, wouldn't he? Yeah. So her parents post a picture of Gabby on social media asking if anyone has seen her. They call all the campsites and parks in the area that Gabby and Brian were last seen in, try to make a missing persons report, but they are told the report has to be made in the city that she lives in. So they try making a report in Florida, but they will also not accept it. Finally, the Long Island police take her missing persons report, and they contact the North Point, Florida police. Gabby's mom then floods the internet with Gabby's picture asking if anyone has seen her, and soon it becomes viral, especially due to the social media exposure that Gabby had be- creating with her own blog. Soon after, the FBI calls Gabby's mom and gets involved. The police hadn't called the FBI. They contact her based on social media stuff. Right, and that's ridiculous. What are the authorities doing? Right. So on September 11th, they dispatch an officer to Brian Laundrie's parents' home, but they refuse to talk to them. They ask them, "When's the last time you saw Brian and Gabby?" And they state that Brian is at the house with them. But that's all they're saying, and we have an attorney now. You need to contact him. Those parents, Brian Laundrie's parents, and I know that they lost their son, and I know that this would be a difficult thing to go through, an unprecedented situation. But I cannot think of shittier behavior, more callous, heartless behavior. All they cared about was Brian. Yeah. They ask if Gabby is there, and they are told no. They notice the van is at the house, and they say, "Is that Gabby's van?" But Brian's dad just snaps, "They both own it." It turns out Brian had arrived back home on September 1st but had not contacted Gabby's parents to let them know that he had come back with the van and without Gabby. If he had, they could have filed a missing persons report 10 days earlier than they did. Mm-hmm. When the police run the plate, they see it's registered to Gabby, so they find it very strange that Brian is there and the van is there. They have an attorney. They're refusing to talk. And so the police call Brian's sister, who says Brian told her that he and Gabby got into a fight. He left her at a hotel and flew home, and the police thinks it's pretty obvious somebody's hiding something. If he flew home, how did the van get there? Right. However, as suspicious as everything is, they have no probable cause to get search warrants or arrest anyone at this point. So they go back to Brian's parents, who still claim they know nothing, and they ask to talk to Brian, but they say, "He's not coming out. You're not gonna talk to him." So the police let them know that actually the van's only registered to Gabby, and as such, they have the right to tow it. And they tell the tow truck driver to touch the van as little as possible, especially the inside. As Brian at this point is not a suspect, they cannot take him to the station, and under the Fifth Amendment right, he can refuse an interview. Mm. 'Cause that was one thing that puzzled me. If the police turn up at my door and say, "I need to interview you," I kind of feel like I have no choice. Right, right. But I guess you do. So the Long Island Police report back to Gabby's parents that Brian is home, so is the van, and that Brian had lawyered up. The big question being, why did he feel the need for an attorney? Gabby's mom said as soon as she hears that, she knew that Gabby was either in serious danger or already gone. She said that was the turning point for her. Mm. So her parents continue to make flyers, contact all the missing persons agencies. Her dad flies to Florida, makes a public statement asking for everyone's help, including Brian's family. And within no time, her picture is all over the news, and both Rose and Jackson immediately just assume Brian has done something bad During the time Gabby's parents, the police, and the FBI are on TV asking for help, and multiple agencies are searching for Gabby, Brian carries on his life like nothing has happened. He's not pleading on TV for help finding his missing fiancee or helping to go out and search for her. He actually goes on a camping trip with his parents, and they take some happy, smiling family vacation pictures. Ugh. Gabby's dad then flies out to Jackson, Wyoming, and makes press statements there as well. When the FBI took up the case, they also head to Jackson to look for Gabby, and they go to the last place her phone was used, which was in a national forest, and they wonder if she's just lost in the wilderness. The FBI in Florida have surveillance on the Laundrie's home, and locals also start to gather outside the house, demanding answers. I've seen footage of this, where there's, like, 100 people on their lawn going, "Where's Gabby?" Right. "Where's Gabby?" Yeah. Brian's sister, Cassie, admits that her parents are now refusing to talk to her as well. Right, I did see that, and I was like, damn. Mm-hmm. Even the sister thinks y'all are sus. The body cam video with the day they were pulled over gets released and shown on the news, and Gabby's parents see it for the first time, and they are just horrified. Oh. On September 17th, someone calls in a report to the police about the Laundrie residence. So they go to the house to investigate, where they are told Brian has now been missing for four days, and they file a missing persons report on Brian. Speculation is he's either on the run, or he's taken his own life. They're still not sure how he got out the house when they had 24-hour surveillance on it. Right. Now, another couple that was traveling through Wyoming at the same time as them found footage of the van on their own YouTube channel and release it, and this all helps the timeline of where and when they were. And police search close to the area shown in the footage, and they find the body of poor Gabby. She had officially gone missing on August 27th, and her body was located on September 19th. Yeah. Police believe she had been there the whole time. They believe that she died on August 27th, before the weird text messages, before the Halloween post. Right. Inspection of the body causes the police to label it a homicide due to blunt force trauma and strangulation. The authorities then have to inform her parents of this dreadful news. Her friends, family, and ex-boyfriend, Jackson, are just devastated Police are then able to get a search warrant for the Laundrie's house, at last, and find a letter to Brian from his mom entitled Burn After Reading, with statements such as, "If you go to jail, I will bake you a cake with a file in it, and if you need to bury a body, I will turn up with a shovel." Yeah. I'll save it for the after show, but I'm infuriated. The police try to figure out the last few hours of Gabby's life, and they hear from a couple who saw them eating at Merry Piglets restaurant and witnessed them argue, leave abruptly without paying the bill, but a restaurant employee follows them out into the parking lot, tells them they have to pay, and eventually they do. They say Brian was noticeably angry and Gabby was crying. At 1:45, she called Jackson, but he was working and couldn't take the call. Then they are seen at the Whole Foods store. Then the video footage the other couple found of the van on the side of the road was around 6:30 PM. Around 7:15 is when she texted her mom about buying Brian out of the van and going traveling solo, and around 8:30 PM, they find usage on her computer, but there's no further evidence of life after that. On August 28th, Brian hikes to a different area. He called his mom for about 55 minutes on August 29th, after which his father immediately contacted an attorney. That really paints a picture. I mean, a phone call to your mother for 55 minutes, first of all, is strange. Like, I don't think that they were necessarily that close to be talking for 55 minutes. I mean, that's a long phone call. Yeah, and as soon as he hung up, his dad called an attorney. Yeah. Yeah. During this time, Brian texts Gabby's phone as if he's waiting for her somewhere. He then hitchhikes back to the van, and they notice that he's still texting Gabby, but none of the messages are marked as read until he gets back to the area. He then continues to text Gabby's phone and sends himself replies from her phone. He then drives the van home using Gabby's credit card to get gas and also Zells $700 from her account to his with a message that says, "Goodbye, Brian. I will never ask you for anything again." Brian is now no longer considered a missing person, but a federal fugitive Various people report sightings of Brian around Florida, and even Dog the Bounty Hunter joins the search. Then a car is found abandoned in the park, and when they run the plates, it belongs to Brian's parents. They say the park it was found in is a favorite place of Brian's to go hiking. They say he told them that he was going hiking to get away from the crowd outside the house, and they begin the search for Brian in the park where the car was found. The park is over 24,000 acres, which is about the size of Manhattan. Wow. And it took a long time to cover. The park was also flooded due to heavy rain, and there are also alligators in the park, so all of that made it kind of tricky. But on October 20th, the park is reopened to the public, and Brian's parents went to the park to help locate him. By this time, the FBI had been searching the park for weeks. However, the Laundries start their search at 7:00 AM that morning, and about an hour into their search, they find a waterproof bag that belonged to Brian. And about 45 minutes after that, Brian's remains are located about a mile from where he parked his car. His clothes and shoes are still intact, but his body had decomposed all the way down to the bone. Dental records at first confirm Brian's identity, and then DNA testing of his femur confirms it. Inside the bag are pictures of Brian and Gabby, a waterproof notebook containing goodbye letters to his family, and there's also a story telling what happened to Gabby, basically saying Gabby was seriously hurt and begged him to take her pain away. Which he did to be merciful. Oh, okay. What a hero. But once she was gone, he did not want to live without her, none of which matches Gabby's autopsy report. The police had been searching for a month, and the parents find his things in an hour. It seems very suspicious. Very. But the flooding has now receded, which is the reason the police give for having missed it before. Many believe his parents had planted some items, for instance, the notebook with the goodbye letters and the explanation. An autopsy ruled his death suicide by gunshot wound to the head, though a gun was never located. No funeral was held for Brian. His remains were cremated, and his family claimed they wanted to grieve in silence to avoid the intense, hostile public scrutiny. On the first anniversary of her death, Gabby's family, Jackson and Rose, visit the site her body was found, and they spread her ashes around the area. The Gabby Petito Foundation was founded by her family to help people leave abusive relationships, providing valuable resources for them to get help. Her case also brought to the surface how many people of color go missing without the same coverage that Gabby got, and Gabby's parents have also joined the campaign to make all missing persons equal. All four of Gabby's parents started the Gabby Petito Foundation, which is formed to help bring awareness to all missing people, and to help victims of domestic violence recognize the signs, and for police to be better trained when they turn up to intervene, like they did on the side of the road that day. No criminal charges were ever filed against his parents, but Gabby's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against them and ended in a settlement. Wow. And that is what I have. This is just a tragic, tragic case, and it's textbook domestic violence, abuse, and control. Mm-hmm. And Gabby was a young woman. She didn't know the signs. Like, obviously she knew something was wrong, because she was voicing like, "Hey, I kinda want out of this." But it was clear that she either was, A, too afraid to get out, or B- And she didn't know how to didn't know how. Yeah, she didn't know how to. Right. And so this is why it's really important that we educate people, young people, about the signs, and we need to give them resources to get out, and it sounds like that her parents are doing that, and I really commend them for that. Yeah. It's a shame that they had to go through what they did. There were so many signs, and I think she was just so excited about doing this van blog, and she'd found somebody that was willing to do it with her, and I'm sure she was torn between setting out to do that dream that she'd always dreamed of and being in this relationship that wasn't the best. Yeah, and I think it's like the sunk cost fallacy too, where like she had moved- Mm thousands of miles away. She didn't cut contact with people, but just naturally, when you move that far away, you don't have close contact with, like, your- your friends and the people that you previously had contact with. And, yeah. So she gave up her whole prior life for this, basically. And she might have felt like, "Well, I've done all this. I can't go back." But you can always go back. Like- Of course her parents, I have no doubt, would've- Absolutely been there. But, like, when you're in a situation like that, you feel shame, you feel embarrassed, you feel fear. It's like admitting failure. Right. Right. Exactly. Or, or, you know, especially as they voiced to her that they felt it was so soon. Mm-hmm. Then she would have had to basically admit they were right. And that's not so easy to do- It's not especially when you're a young person. Right. And I think the van trip was something she'd always wanted to do. Mm-hmm. So the appeal of having somebody with her, even if he wasn't that into it, that was prepared to do it with her. Right. Ugh, it's just so sad. Very sad. All right. Shall we save the rest for the after show? I'll save my hot takes for the after show, yes. I will say that they do think that his motive, whether or not he had a motive to kill her or whether the argument just got that bad that he killed her, but they do believe that it, he found out that she was in communication with Jackson. I believe it. That would be typical MO for an abuser. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like she was reaching out to Jackson as a cry for help pretty much. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, and that probably set him off. I mean, if you're in a relationship with somebody like that, that is controlling everything that you do, they're checking your phone- Mm-hmm at every opportunity. So that's totally a viable reason. Yeah. So that seems to be why maybe he snapped. All right. Well, whatever really happened, we know that it wasn't because she got hurt and he, quote-unquote, "wanted to put her out of her misery." Out of her misery. Yeah. He was being merciful. Just painting himself as this hero, this nice guy. Like, I wanna Never mind. Anyway. All right. Well, you guys better meet us in the after show, 'cause we got a lot to say about this. Yes. If you're a subscriber, we will see you in the after show. If you're not a subscriber, what's next week? Do we know? No, 'cause I left my phone in the car. Sarah left her phone in the car. We don't know. Maybe Tonda, or is that out now? I think Tonda Dickerson is next, is next week. I think you're right. Yeah. And the lottery curse. Mm. That's a really good one, so. And when we put out our TikTok asking, um, what cases you wanted us to cover, this was a requested one that we'd already planned to do. But shout out to the person on TikTok that said she wanted to hear it, 'cause here you go. Here you go. You're welcome. There you go. Make sure you let us know if you wanna hear a story. Yes. All right. Until then. Be divas. No, definitely. Bye.