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What Brian Laundrie Said Happened to Gabby Petito When She Died - E! Online
In Netflix’s American Murder: Gabby Petito, Brian Laundrie’s written account of what he claimed were his fiancée’s final moments was revealed.
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Watch : Why Gabby Petito’s Parents Kept Parts of Her Van After Her Murder
Warning: This story discusses suicide and murder.
Brian Laundrie’s account of Gabby Petito’s 2021 death has been revealed.
In the Netflix docuseries American Murder: Gabby Petito, which premiered Feb. 17, a handwritten letter left behind by Laundrie—in which he admitted to ending his fiancée’s life during a cross-country road trip—told his version of events in what he described as “an unexpected tragedy.”
“Rushing back to our car, trying to cross the streams,” he wrote, according to the doc. “I hear a splash and a scream. I can barely see.”
Laundrie, 23, went on to allege the van life influencer was “gasping” and “freezing cold” when he found her.
“When I pulled Gabby out of the water, she couldn’t tell me what hurt,” he continued. “While carrying her, she continually made sounds of pain.”
From there, Laundrie described the 22-year-old as “begging for an end to her pain.” But while he “thought it was merciful” to end her life, Laundrie wrote he instantly second-guessed his actions.
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What Brian Laundrie Messaged Himself From Gabby Petito’s Phone After Her Murder
“From the moment I decided to take her pain away,” he reflected in his note, “I knew I couldn’t go on without her.”
Laundrie returned home to Florida without Petito in September 2021 and went missing days after the FBI opened an investigation into her disappearance. Shortly after her remains were discovered in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, his body was found at Florida’s Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, with authorities later determining that Laundrie died by suicide.
Courtesy of Netflix
“I have killed myself by this creek,” Laundrie shared in his letter, which investigators discovered alongside his remains, “in the hopes that the animals will tear me apart.”
While Petito’s cause of death was ruled as a homicide caused by manual strangulation and blunt-force trauma to her head and neck, Laundrie’s explanation of the events leading up to her passing only added to the mystery left for her loved ones.
“We knew at that point we weren't ever going to get remotely close to answers we were hoping for,” her stepfather Jim Schmidt said in the series, “because the only two people that truly knew what happened are now both gone.”
Keep reading for more bombshells from American Murder: Gabby Petito.
Courtesy of Netflix
Gabby Petito's Family Thought Brian Laundrie Was Nice, But...
"I thought he was a little socially awkward but very polite," Gabby Petito's mom Nichole Schmidt said of Brian Laundrie in Netflix's American Murder: Gabby Petito.
"Kinda quiet," noted Gabby's stepfather Jim Schmidt. But, said Gabby's father Joe Petito, Brian "shook your hand, looked you in the eye."
Gabby and Brian got together after high school—love at first sight, he'd tell friends of the moment he saw her outside a deli and pulled over to talk to her—and after less than nine months of dating she moved to Florida with him to be closer to his family in December 2019.
Rose Davis, a friend Gabby met in Florida, said of hanging out with both her and Brian for the first time, "It felt like a parent was watching us on a play date. It was very weird." Brian was "very nice," she added, but Rose remembered going home and telling her mom, "there is something off about him."
"That just started becoming more and more clear as our friendship progressed," Rose said. "Brian had a very dark side of him."
Brian proposed in July 2020. Nichole said she found out Gabby was engaged from Brian's mom Roberta Laundrie posting about it on Facebook.
"She didn't want to tell anybody," Nichole said. "I thought that was really strange."
Gabby's stepmother Tara Petito said she found it "a little bit shocking" that Brian didn't ask Joe for his daughter's hand before popping the question.
Gabby was excited and happy at first, Nichole said, "but as time went on, she kind of lost that excitement."
Courtesy of Netflix
Brian Laundrie Didn't Support Gabby Petito's #VanLife Dream
Rose recalled how much Gabby loved working at Taco Bell, the job she took to help her pay for her beloved white 2012 Ford Transit Connect van. But Brian "started feeling neglected and having this possessiveness" over Gabby, she said.
In text messages shown in the series, he disparaged her job and called the people she worked with "low lifes," writing it was "f--king disgusting" she had become one of them.
He managed to make her feel bad about making him feel bad, which resulted in her feeling undeserving of Brian's love, Rose said, "and he wanted her to feel that way."
"I think there was a moment before her van life that she started to open her eyes," Rose added. Gabby was getting "more frustrated. I think it was all clicking for her, the more it went on."
Still, Brian looked amiable enough in the footage Gabby shot as they embarked on their #VanLife odyssey in July 2021.
But according to Rose, he didn't think much of his fiancée's dream and mainly went along for the ride to have her all to himself.
"If I get her away from her job, I get her away from her friend, she only has me," Rose said of his motivations. "And then, next thing you know, they were gone."
Gabby told her, Rose continued, that Brian thought her vlog idea was "stupid." But, she added, "I think he was worried that the truth of everything would be on footage. There’s that possibility he says the wrong thing or reacts the wrong way while she's recording."
Courtesy of Netflix
The Cops Gave Brian Laundrie the Benefit of the Doubt
On Aug. 12, 2021, a witness called 911 to report he had seen a man slapping a woman on the side of the road in Moab, Utah, after which they drove off and the van they were riding in hit a curb.
Body cam footage from the Moab City Police's encounter with Brian and Gabby that day was aired weeks later during the investigation into Gabby's fate.
But it remains shocking to see Gabby basically taking responsibility for their physical altercation, telling officers she had anxiety and "really bad OCD" and Brian really stressed her out but had been trying to calm her down.
Brian had scratches on his face from Gabby's phone, he said, telling police he was trying to push her away as she attempted to get the van keys from him.
When a cop asked Gabby how she got bruises on her face and arm, she kept saying "I don't know." But she had been yelling at him, she said, and told police, "I guess I hit him first."
One officer told another, per the footage, that "from what she's claiming, she's the full-on aggressor here."
A cop then escorted Brian to a hotel known in the area as a refuge for victims of domestic violence, while Gabby was given the keys to the van and told where, an officer said, she could get a cheap hot shower to "decompress, destress a little bit."
The couple were ordered to refrain from contact, including texting, until the next day, but they reunited that night and soon were headed to Salt Lake City.
Courtesy of Netflix
The Police Footage Was Eye-Opening for Gabby Petito's Family
"She never told me about their fight in Moab," Rose said in the series, having noted that Gabby had FaceTimed her every few weeks from the road, "but I've seen her that upset before, because of him."
Recalling how she felt finding out about the 911 call and viewing the police footage for the first time that September, Gabby's mom Nichole said in the series, "I watched my daughter looking frightened to death. That's when I realized that things were way worse than I could have imagined."
And "to see the distress my daughter was in, and then [cops] laughing and joking around [with Brian]," Nichole continued, "I could not believe that she was being treated as an aggressor."
Courtesy of Netflix
Gabby Petito Texted Her Ex-Boyfriend From the Road
Gabby's ex-boyfriend Jackson (no last name given) said in the series that he heard from her out of the blue on Aug. 22, 2021. They had dated for about a year before she started seeing Brian, he noted, and had talked about doing the #VanLife thing together. So, when he heard about her adventure with Brian, he was a little wistful, but also happy for her.
"I'm sure I’m the last person on the planet you want to hear from," she wrote in a text shown in the series, adding that she was "only alone until tomorrow," if they could talk before then.
He later considered her reaching out "a cry for help."
On the phone Gabby "hinted" that she and Brian had an argument, Jackson recalled, and she said "I have a plan, I think I want to leave him." She just had to figure out when, she told him.
"I think that she wasn’t sure of what he would do, or what he could do," Jackson said. "I think she was wanting to get away but just didn't know how to do it."
Gabby Snapchatted him on Aug. 27 saying being in Jackson Hole, Wyo., reminded her of him. She also called him later that day, at 1:45 p.m., Jackson said, but he was at work and couldn't answer. That was the last he ever heard from her.
"Maybe if I did answer that phone call," he said, "I could have helped or there could have been a different outcome."
Courtesy of Netflix
Gabby Petito's Parents Tried to Get in Touch With Brian Laundrie's Family
On Aug. 27, Gabby texted her mom: "I'm fine. I convinced Brian to go camp out in the woods so I can have the van to myself. It’s what he wants to do anyway. I don’t care. He said I could have the van if I paid him."
Nichole asked if they were breaking up, to which Gabby replied, "No I just said I could make more money as a solo female van lifer. I’m driving to a campsite now."
Further texts to Gabby went unanswered. Nichole received one from her daughter's phone Aug. 30 that struck her as weird, she said, because it referred to Gabby's grandfather by his name, Stan, instead of "grandpa."
Having heard nothing from Gabby since, Nichole texted Brian's mother, Roberta, on Sept. 10 and got no reply. When she attempted again, she said, the bubble had gone from blue to green, an indication either Roberta's phone was off or Nichole had been blocked.
Gabby's dad Joe also tried contacting Roberta and Brian's dad Chris Laundrie, as well as his sister Cassie Laundrie, to no avail, Joe said in the series. Including, he added, when he texted they were calling the police.
E! News reached out to the Laundries' attorney for comment but did not hear back. The series noted that, through their lawyer, they declined to provide a comment. (At the time, Cassie told reporters that she and her husband were getting updates about the case from the media and didn't know what was going on with her parents or brother. "We are just as upset, frustrated and heartbroken as everybody else," she said.)
Courtesy of Netflix
This Was When Gabby Petito's Parents Knew Something Was Really Wrong
On Sept. 11, North Port, Fla., police officers went to Roberta and Chris' home to see if they had any information about Gabby's whereabouts.
The cops' body cam footage shows Chris telling them that Brian was inside, he had nothing to say and the police could call the family's attorney.
As heard from the footage and audio recordings, police in North Port and New York's Suffolk County, where Gabby's family lived, were at a loss as to what to do next, since there was no proof yet that a crime had been committed.
But the van Brian and Gabby had been traveling in was parked in the Laundries' driveway and, because Gabby's name was the only one on the title, police were able to promptly tow it away.
Finding all of this out, Nichole recalled in the series, "My body would not stop shaking...I knew something bad happened."
Added Gabby's dad Joe, "We started screaming." Stepmom Tara said, "I collapsed."
Friend Rose noted, "I just lost it, to be honest. I was screaming, 'What did he do? He did something, what did he do?'"
Courtesy of Netflix
Brian Laundrie's Mom Told Him She'd Help Him Get Rid of a Body
When authorities returned to the Laundrie house on Sept. 17, Brian's parents said he wasn't there, they hadn't seen him for three days and they wanted to report him missing, FBI Special Agent, Tampa Division, Loretta Bush recounted in the series.
Among his belongings at the house, the agent continued, was a letter from his mother, on which she'd written "burn after reading)."
"You are my boy, nothing can make me stop loving you. Nothing will or could ever divide us, no matter what we do," Bush read. "If you are in jail I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."
In the series, both Rose and Tara called the letter "disgusting."
Nichole said, "It made me sick to my stomach."
Courtesy of Netflix
Investigators Detailed Brian Laundrie's Attempt to Create an Alibi
On Aug. 29, Brian made "a flurry of calls to his parents," Busy said. "They contacted each other multiple times. We learned that he told them Gabby was gone and he needed a lawyer...At which point his parents wired money to a lawyer."
Joe remembered thinking, "You're going to throw $25,000 of your hard-earned cash out on a lawyer from f--king Wyoming? And you're telling me you didn't ask where she was? That's some bulls--t."
Gabby's stepdad Jim alleged the amount couldn't be for "anything less than to represent somebody for murder."
Most chillingly, investigators figured out using cellular data that he'd been texting Gabby under the guise that she was alive, but that his messages weren't read on her phone until he was back at the Spread Creek Dispersed camping area in Bridger-Teton National Forest, where her phone was.
"The activity between the two phones was almost instantaneous," Special Agent Bush explained. "He was holding both phones and talking directly to himself. It was apparent that he was trying to create an alibi."
Brian started the drive to Florida on Aug. 30, using Gabby's debit card to pay for gas at multiple stations along the way, per the FBI. He sent the text about Gabby's grandfather to her mom and sent himself a Zelle payment from Gabby's account for $700, as if she were paying him for the van.
The transaction memo read, "Goodbye Brian, I'll never ask you for anything again."
Courtesy of Netflix
Joe Petito Remains Haunted by Thoughts of Daughter Gabby's Last Moments
Gabby's body was found Sept. 19, 2021, by members of the official search party in the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area.
She was lying in the fetal position on her left side, wearing a hoodie. The coroner determined she'd been strangled and had blunt force trauma to her head and neck.
An agent noted in the series, "She was not laying in a natural position," leading them to believe she was killed elsewhere and the crime scene had been staged.
Gabby's stepdad Jim was in town for the search. When he saw a photo of her body, "just left there like she was a piece of trash by someone who was supposed to love her," he "collapsed to the ground," he recalled in the series. He then called Nichole, Joe and Tara.
"I got a phone call that I'd never see my daughter again," Joe said. Tara called it the worst day of their life.
"I think about the last moments a lot," Joe continued. "I’m sure she was scared. And anytime she was scared she would call me or Jim, [Tara] or Nicki, so I don’t know who she called out for."
Gabby Petito's Family Didn't Buy Brian Laundrie's Version of Events
Brian's skeletal remains were found Oct. 20 in the Carlton Memorial Reserve. His death was ruled a suicide from a gunshot wound to the head.
In a waterproof bag found nearby, there were pictures of Brian and Gabby, a waterproof notebook in which he wrote that she'd been injured and he "ended her life" to take away her pain.
But from that moment, he added, "I knew I couldn't go on without her."
There were also letters in the bag, including one stating, "Please do not make life harder for my family, they lost a son and a daughter.”
Nichole reflected in the series, "I always found it odd that he wrote in there, leave my parents out of this, they didn’t do anything wrong."
Jim noted, "Not one of the versions of Brian's account was accurate by the findings of Gabby's autopsy. The sole cause of her death was strangulation and nothing remotely or even close to what he said."
A judge awarded Gabby's family $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit they filed against Brian's estate in 2022. Another suit they filed against his parents, for intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress, was settled in February 2024.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
