What seemed like an exciting road trip for 22-year-old Gabrielle Venora Petito and her fiance quickly turned tragic. On Sept. 19, 2021, about 4 weeks after Petito went missing, her remains were discovered at Spread Creek, located near the Bridger-Teton National Forest, WY. Her fiance, Brian Laundrie, was found dead a month later by apparent suicide. The truth about Petito’s death was released years later to the whole world in a Netflix documentary which was released on February 17, 2025.
In March 2019, Petito met Laundrie at a deli, and it was love at first sight. A year and nine months later, Brian decided to propose to Petito with no ring and shared the news on Instagram. Later, they bought a 2012 Ford Transit Connect van to travel the country together while vlogging their trip. These vlogs, however, never showed her fiance’s abusive tendencies. On Aug. 12, 2021 Moab City police pulled them over near Arches National Park in Utah, after someone reported to police that they had witnessed a man slapping a woman. Petito told officers that she slapped Brian and hit him first but also that Brian grabbed her face. Ultimately, the officer wrote in a report that it appeared that the incident was a mental health crisis. The officers ultimately told them they had to spend the night apart, having zero contact until the next day. Petito was left with the van, and police took Brian to a motel. However, not even a day later, they reconnected and continued their journey together.
A couple months after embarking on their journey, Petito had been reported missing after not responding to her parents’ messages. Her parents had warned Florida Police and they were able to find an approximate date of when Petito had been missing but could not identify where she was. A travel blogger, Jenn Bethune, and her husband, Kyle, who were also on a road trip, had spotted Petito’s van. With this information, the police knew exactly where Petito was. The police spent days searching for Petito when suddenly an officer found her body lying sideways, with a sweater over her.
Since Brian was the last person seen with Petito in Wyoming, Brian became a person of interest. In order to ask him a couple questions, the Florida Police needed to figure out where he was. Once officers found out where he was, they were confused about why he was back at home with Petito’s van parked on his driveway while she had been reported missing. A couple of days after police attempted to talk to Brian when he had refused, Brian’s parents filed a missing person report. Brian was first found within the Carlton Reserve, Florida. According to FHS sophomore Mia Sun, Brian’s parents hiding him and defending him from the police was not the right thing to do.
“I feel like protecting him wasn’t the right thing to do,” Sun said.”Keeping what he did a secret makes it worse.”
Why Petito chose to stay after the first incident remains a mystery. According to the documentary, Petito was telling her friend she had plans of leaving but never did. FHS sophomore Layla Cabrera has watched many documentaries and has a theory about Petito’s decision to stay.
“She clearly was saying how she had an emotional attachment to him and she’s very forgiving, so in [the] part where they got pulled over by the cops, she kept on trying to tell the cops that it was her fault,” Cabrera said.
Taking everything into account, Petito’s life was taken way too quickly by a man whom she loved and thought she could trust.
