Content warning: This article contains mild spoilers for the Netflix docuseries American Murder: Gabby Petito
According to a series director, Netflix’s American Murder: Gabby Petito may have answered why Brian Laundrie killed Petito in August 2021, and the consensus of a recent Reddit thread from people who’ve seen the show and who have followed the case closely agrees.
In summer and fall 2021, the world was transfixed by the Petito missing persons case after the 22-year-old girl and aspiring influencer vanished on a cross-country road trip chronicled online with her fiancé, Laundrie. Her body was later found in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, and her cause of death was determined to be homicide. Laundrie was later found dead by suicide in a wilderness area near his parents’ Florida home, along with a notebook in which he confessed he killed Petito. Laundrie seemed to characterize Petito’s death as a mercy killing.
Experts have since doubted Laundries’ written version of events, and the question remains: Why did Laundrie do it? Speaking with Variety, American Murder directors Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro said one detail revealed in the show may finally provide an answer.
Did Laundrie succumb to a jealous rage?
The tragic Petito case was so heavily covered when it happened that it seems incredible there could be any new information to discover. However, few knew before Nason and Gasparro’s show that Petito had contacted her ex-boyfriend before she was killed, including on the day she died.
According to Gasparro, the fact that Petito had texted and called her ex before her death was news even for the show’s directors. “She was obviously suffering,” Gasparro said. “She trusted her ex and reached out. It was like a cry for help. We think that’s probably something that Brian caught wind of.”
A Reddit thread posted by someone who followed the case closely provided further unconfirmed context for the theory that Laundrie found out Petito and her ex were in contact.
“As I understand the timeline, Gabby was alone in a motel for a few days after the Moab incident,” where the body cam footage originated. Police ordered the couple to remain apart for the night.
The post adds, “She reached out to her ex via phone, stayed in contact, and Snapchatted him the morning of her disappearance. She then apparently calls him later that same day when she is [known] to be with Brian.”
“That call seems suspicious to me, almost like Brian was going through her phone (classic abuser behavior) sees the communication between Gabby and the ex, calls to confront him, and the call doesn’t get answered. Later that day, you have the parking lot footage of Brian slamming the van door,” and within 24 hours, Gabby is dead, the post says.
One Reddit response agreed, “I think Gabby wanted to leave Brian and was trying to find out a way, without maybe ‘hurting Brian.’ She contacted her ex and Brian, being overly jealous, saw the messages, and maybe that was a motive.”
It may never be known what went on between Petito and Laundrie. However, other evidence does support that there was domestic violence in the relationship, including Utah police body cam footage of Laundrie and Petito after witnesses called the cops, reporting they saw Laundrie hit her. American Murder: Gabby Petito is streaming now on Netflix.
