Latest / Beyond The Horizon / American Murder: Gabby Petito
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. Recently
- 0:04Speaker 1: Netflix released a documentary about Gabby Petito's murder and when
- 0:09Speaker 1: I was watching it, my hatred of Brian Laundrie reignited
- 0:13Speaker 1: all over again. Has there ever been a more condemnable
- 0:17Speaker 1: piece of garbage? What an absolute scumbag this dude was.
- 0:21Speaker 1: And then on top of that, his garbage ass family
- 0:24Speaker 1: that covered for him even though they knew that he
- 0:27Speaker 1: did something horrible to Gabby. Now, they'll never admit that,
- 0:30Speaker 1: but the evidence is there for everybody to see. And
- 0:33Speaker 1: when we were covering this in real time when it
- 0:35Speaker 1: was happening, there was no doubt in my mind that
- 0:37Speaker 1: his family knew the deal. And I can't even imagine
- 0:40Speaker 1: being the Petitos and having to deal with a non-compliant
- 0:43Speaker 1: family of the boyfriend or fiance or whatever of my
- 0:48Speaker 1: daughter who didn't come home. That's the kind of thing
- 0:50Speaker 1: that I'd end up in prison over because me and
- 0:52Speaker 1: the boys would be showing up at your house guaranteed
- 0:55Speaker 1: without a doubt. Now, I'm not saying that's the right
- 0:58Speaker 1: way to go about it, but I'd be so in
- 1:00Speaker 1: my feelings, I'd be so upset about what happened, that
- 1:03Speaker 1: I wouldn't care about consequences, and I'm sure that the
- 1:06Speaker 1: Petitos wanted to do that. And especially after finding out
- 1:11Speaker 1: that the family knew what the deal was, had the
- 1:13Speaker 1: dude there, they were hiding him out, go on a
- 1:16Speaker 1: camping trip, the whole thing. Now, how could anybody who's
- 1:20Speaker 1: following along, or who was following along, Not be suspicious
- 1:24Speaker 1: of that. Your son is on this cross-country trip with
- 1:27Speaker 1: his girlfriend becoming a van blogger. Then he comes home
- 1:30Speaker 1: without his girlfriend, by the way. And all of you
- 1:33Speaker 1: decide you're going to go on a camping trip. Sure,
- 1:36Speaker 1: that's not a say goodbye moment for you with your kid.
- 1:39Speaker 1: We all know the deal. And then on top of it,
- 1:42Speaker 1: you know your son's suffering through some sort of mental breakdown.
- 1:45Speaker 1: And in the throes of this mental breakdown, you decide
- 1:48Speaker 1: it's a good idea to let him go out to
- 1:49Speaker 1: this reserve on his own. And then you don't see
- 1:51Speaker 1: them for days and nobody reports them missing. And the
- 1:54Speaker 1: sad part is the laundries are never going to have
- 1:56Speaker 1: to face any real consequences for what they did. So
- 1:59Speaker 1: your heart has to go out to the Petitos. Not
- 2:02Speaker 1: only for the fact that obviously they lost their daughter.
- 2:05Speaker 1: But they never really got any kind of justice on
- 2:08Speaker 1: the back end of that. Today we have an article
- 2:11Speaker 1: from the Daily Mail and the headline. The inside story
- 2:14Speaker 1: of how Gabby Petito was murdered by her boyfriend. From
- 2:17Speaker 1: sickening burn after reading letter. to the family cover-up and
- 2:20Speaker 1: final confrontation. And when this was happening in real time,
- 2:24Speaker 1: there was no doubt that they were covering up for Brian.
- 2:29Speaker 1: He was already at the house. They knew he was there.
- 2:31Speaker 1: They knew that something bad happened to Gabby. And they
- 2:34Speaker 1: just clammed up. They called a lawyer instead. Now look,
- 2:37Speaker 1: I get it. Calling a lawyer is the right thing
- 2:38Speaker 1: to do. But you don't protect your son in this instance.
- 2:42Speaker 1: Bro didn't steal something from the store. He didn't have
- 2:45Speaker 1: a fight with his girlfriend. He murdered that poor girl.
- 2:49Speaker 1: So if it was my kid, you wouldn't have to
- 2:51Speaker 1: worry about the police. Because I'd be busting your ass
- 2:54Speaker 1: right then and there you show up without your girlfriend.
- 2:56Speaker 2: Uh, hey, where's your girl at?
- 2:58Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. She decided to stay. Say what now?
- 3:01Speaker 1: Get back in the car. We're going to get her.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Like, for real?
- 3:04Speaker 1: The fuck is wrong with this dude's parents? This article
- 3:08Speaker 1: was authored by Linda Dawes. Even taken purely at face value,
- 3:12Speaker 1: the letter Roberta Laundrie wrote to her son Brian was disturbing.
- 3:16Speaker 1: An intense and somewhat overwrought proclamation, of a mother's unwavering
- 3:20Speaker 1: love for her child. You are my boy. Nothing can
- 3:23Speaker 1: make me stop loving you, it read. Nothing will or
- 3:26Speaker 1: could ever divide us, no matter what we do. If
- 3:28Speaker 1: you're in jail, I will bake you a cake with
- 3:30Speaker 1: a file in it. Roberta added, if you need to
- 3:33Speaker 1: dispose a body, I will show up with a shovel
- 3:35Speaker 1: and garbage bags. The letter was titled, Burn After Reading. Yeah,
- 3:40Speaker 1: nothing to see here, folks. That's just on the up
- 3:42Speaker 1: and up. I know when I used to go to
- 3:44Speaker 1: school every day, Inside of my lunchbox with my cookies
- 3:47Speaker 1: and my sandwich, my mom would have a burn-after-reading letter
- 3:50Speaker 1: for me because she loved me so much.
- 3:52Speaker 2: Absolute weirdo behavior.
- 3:55Speaker 1: The significance of the note was to become apparent when
- 3:57Speaker 1: Brian's remains were found in Florida's Carlton Reserve on October 20th, 2021.
- 4:04Speaker 1: The 23-year-old had ended his own life with a gunshot
- 4:07Speaker 1: to the head. Nearby were his belongings, including photos and
- 4:10Speaker 1: letters to his family. Also among them was a note
- 4:14Speaker 1: written by Brian, admitting to the murder of his fiancée,
- 4:17Speaker 1: Gabby Petito, two months previously. Imagine not thinking that Brian
- 4:22Speaker 1: Laundrie killed Gabby Petito. Imagine truly believing that. And I'm
- 4:27Speaker 1: sure there was people out there that still believed it.
- 4:29Speaker 1: You know, there's people out here that idolize these killers,
- 4:32Speaker 1: that idolize these scumbags and derelicts, and they think that
- 4:36Speaker 1: all of them are innocent, even when the evidence points
- 4:38Speaker 1: a completely different direction. But to anybody who's really paying attention,
- 4:42Speaker 1: there was no doubt that Brian Laundrie was responsible for
- 4:45Speaker 1: Gabby being killed or something bad happening to her. And
- 4:49Speaker 1: when she didn't show up at home and nobody could
- 4:51Speaker 1: find her, well, we all knew the deal. The disappearance
- 4:56Speaker 1: of Gabby made headlines around the world. The 22-year-old from
- 4:59Speaker 1: Long Island, New York, had embarked on a summer road
- 5:02Speaker 1: trip with Brian, never to return. And I remember at
- 5:05Speaker 1: the time when it was happening, it was just bedlam.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Nobody knew where Brian was. People thought he was on
- 5:11Speaker 1: the run. There was talk that he was in Mexico,
- 5:14Speaker 1: talk that he left the country, went here or there. Meanwhile,
- 5:18Speaker 1: I thought that his best bet would have been to
- 5:20Speaker 1: make it out west and just use the mask laws
- 5:23Speaker 1: that were in place at the time and have a
- 5:25Speaker 1: low profile. But his object was never to run. The
- 5:29Speaker 1: object was always to take the coward's way out.
- 5:32Speaker 2: And kill himself.
- 5:33Speaker 1: That way he didn't have to face justice and didn't
- 5:35Speaker 1: have to face Gabby's people. And while there's no doubt
- 5:38Speaker 1: that the world's a better place without Brian Laundrie in it,
- 5:42Speaker 1: it sucks that her family, Gabby's family, didn't get the
- 5:45Speaker 1: justice that they truly deserved. Because if anybody ever deserved
- 5:50Speaker 1: a helicopter ride over a volcano, it's the bald-headed, barefooted,
- 5:55Speaker 1: melon-munching bitch-ass Brian Laundrie. Now a three-part Netflix documentary, American Murder,
- 6:01Speaker 1: Gabby Petito, Pieces together the last weeks of her life
- 6:05Speaker 1: and includes some startling new details, not least from the
- 6:08Speaker 1: contents of Roberta's letter to her killer son. Gabby's parents,
- 6:12Speaker 1: Nicole Schmidt and Joe Petito, feature at length in the
- 6:14Speaker 1: documentary and, as a shaken Nicole recalls, The letter made
- 6:18Speaker 1: her sick to my stomach. I think it made everybody sick, honestly.
- 6:21Speaker 1: And if it made us sick, can you imagine how
- 6:23Speaker 1: Gabby's family felt? Though Roberta later claimed that she had
- 6:28Speaker 1: written the note before the young couple set out on
- 6:30Speaker 1: their road trip, its content still managed to appall, not
- 6:34Speaker 1: least because when Gabby's body was finally found in a
- 6:37Speaker 1: forest in Wyoming, it was determined that she had been
- 6:39Speaker 1: strangled and her body disposed of. Now imagine the coincidence
- 6:44Speaker 1: of writing that letter and not knowing what your son
- 6:45Speaker 1: was up to or what he was capable of. I
- 6:48Speaker 1: don't believe it. I'm sorry, I just don't believe it
- 6:50Speaker 1: and I never will. I believe that Roberta Laundrie and
- 6:55Speaker 1: her husband Christopher Laundrie, I believe that they knew the deal.
- 6:58Speaker 1: They knew what would happen to Gabby and they provided
- 7:00Speaker 1: cover for their son. In July of 2021, Gabby set
- 7:04Speaker 1: off on her four-month road trip across America with Brian,
- 7:08Speaker 1: hoping to kickstart a career as a van life vlogger,
- 7:11Speaker 1: making and posting videos online as they cross the country
- 7:14Speaker 1: in their converted Ford Transit. But as the documentary shows,
- 7:18Speaker 1: behind the carefree Instagram posts of a smiling couple posing
- 7:21Speaker 1: at the canyons and hot springs of Western America, a
- 7:24Speaker 1: far darker picture was emerging. Look, I think that picture
- 7:28Speaker 1: was already there. When you talk to the friends and
- 7:31Speaker 1: the family, according to them, Brian was super controlling. And
- 7:35Speaker 1: one of his main goals was to isolate Gabby from
- 7:38Speaker 1: her friends and her family. And what better way to
- 7:41Speaker 1: do that than to get her on the road? On
- 7:43Speaker 1: August 12th, police in Moab, Utah responded to a call
- 7:46Speaker 1: from a person who reported seeing a man hitting a
- 7:48Speaker 1: woman before they drove off together in a van. For
- 7:52Speaker 1: the first time, the documentary shows the full body camera
- 7:55Speaker 1: footage taken by police as they pulled over Gabby and
- 7:58Speaker 1: Brian in response.
- 8:00Speaker 2: To that call.
- 8:01Speaker 1: Absolutely terrible footage. The way Moab's carrying on and having
- 8:05Speaker 1: a good time with Brian Laundrie. After he obviously beat
- 8:08Speaker 1: the hell out of Gabby, look at her face. How
- 8:10Speaker 1: don't you take him to jail for that? And then
- 8:12Speaker 1: to call her the aggressor? That is some wild ass shit.
- 8:16Speaker 1: Some of the most wild shit I've ever heard. And
- 8:19Speaker 1: I don't know how that cop sleeps that night, honestly. Now,
- 8:21Speaker 1: they'll tell you, oh, we did our job. We separated
- 8:24Speaker 1: them by sending Brian Laundrie to a victim's hotel and
- 8:28Speaker 1: having Gabby sleep in the truck.
- 8:30Speaker 2: Come on now.
- 8:31Speaker 1: And furthermore, if you're Brian, don't you say, look, I'm
- 8:34Speaker 1: not going to no hotel while my lady sleeps in
- 8:36Speaker 1: the truck. I don't care how much we're fighting. She
- 8:38Speaker 1: goes to the hotel. I sleep in the truck. Is
- 8:41Speaker 1: it too much to ask not to be a complete
- 8:43Speaker 1: piece of shit? Well, I guess when we're talking about
- 8:46Speaker 1: Brian Laundrie, it most certainly is. In the chilling video,
- 8:50Speaker 1: a crying Gabby tells officers that the couple had gotten
- 8:53Speaker 1: into a fight, while Brian, calm and affable, reasons with them.
- 8:57Speaker 1: Both have visible marks on their body, Gabby on her
- 9:00Speaker 1: face and arm, Brian on his face. When a clearly
- 9:04Speaker 1: distressed Gabby tells police, I guess I hit him first,
- 9:07Speaker 1: the officers inform Brian that he is the victim of
- 9:10Speaker 1: a domestic assault. They go on to arrange a cheap
- 9:13Speaker 1: hotel room for him overnight, while Gabby is instructed to
- 9:16Speaker 1: stay in the van. Like, I can't even begin to imagine. Like,
- 9:21Speaker 1: what sort of man, and I say that in quotes,
- 9:24Speaker 1: would let his lady sleep in this van while you're
- 9:27Speaker 1: sleeping in the hotel room? I just don't understand it.
- 9:32Speaker 1: Given what eventually transpired, it's astonishing exchange, and if the
- 9:36Speaker 1: situation had been handled differently, might well have changed the
- 9:39Speaker 1: course of events. Nicole says the footage, to see the
- 9:42Speaker 1: distress my daughter was in, and the police and Brian
- 9:45Speaker 1: laughing and joking around, I cannot believe that she was
- 9:48Speaker 1: being treated as an aggressor. And the police even say
- 9:51Speaker 1: in the video, this little 110 pound girl, she's not
- 9:54Speaker 1: really posing any danger to this man, but yet she's
- 9:58Speaker 1: the aggressor. I, don't understand how they can get to
- 10:01Speaker 1: that conclusion, especially when the witness who called it in
- 10:05Speaker 1: said that the man was hitting the woman. Then you
- 10:08Speaker 1: look at Gabby's eye and look, I have to tell you,
- 10:12Speaker 1: unless there's some sort of life and death type of struggle,
- 10:15Speaker 1: no woman's eyes should ever look like that from some man,
- 10:18Speaker 1: especially someone who says he loves her. And everybody who
- 10:21Speaker 1: knows me in real life knows I have no tolerance
- 10:23Speaker 1: for this kind of bullshit. It's gross, and it's bitch made.
- 10:27Speaker 1: In my opinion, the second a man puts his hands
- 10:29Speaker 1: on a woman, he loses the right to be called
- 10:31Speaker 1: a man. You wanna fight, find a dude, homie. You're
- 10:35Speaker 1: so tough. When the pair first started dating in March
- 10:38Speaker 1: of 2019, Gabby's family found Brian to be quiet and
- 10:42Speaker 1: a little socially awkward, but otherwise liked him well enough. Well,
- 10:46Speaker 1: that's how these monsters roll, right? You never see their
- 10:49Speaker 1: real face. They have one face that they show to society,
- 10:52Speaker 1: and another face that comes out at night when the
- 10:54Speaker 1: lights are off, and they're home with their lady. And
- 10:57Speaker 1: that's exactly the kind of scumbag that dirty laundry was.
- 11:02Speaker 1: Gabby moved to North Point, Florida to live with him
- 11:05Speaker 1: and his family, but struggled to get on with his mother, Roberta.
- 11:08Speaker 1: When the pair got engaged and Roberta posted the news
- 11:10Speaker 1: on Facebook, Gabby's family were shocked. Though her parents, Nicole
- 11:14Speaker 1: and Joe, had separated when she was a baby, Gabby
- 11:17Speaker 1: remained very close to both, as well as to Joe's wife, Tara,
- 11:21Speaker 1: Nicole's husband, Jim Schmidt, and her six younger siblings. To
- 11:25Speaker 1: be shut out of the news of the engagement seemed
- 11:28Speaker 1: deeply out of character. She didn't want to tell anybody,
- 11:30Speaker 1: says Nicole. I thought that was really strange. Yeah, I
- 11:34Speaker 1: would think so. Like, isn't that something you want to
- 11:37Speaker 1: share with everybody? And especially with, you know, the girl's
- 11:40Speaker 1: family before you post it on Facebook or whatever? In fact,
- 11:45Speaker 1: the documentary reveals behind their picture-perfect online presence, Brian was
- 11:49Speaker 1: a controlling and abusive partner. When Gabby got a job
- 11:53Speaker 1: at a fast food restaurant to finance her dream of
- 11:55Speaker 1: becoming a travel vlogger, for example, Brian labeled her disgusting,
- 11:59Speaker 1: later explaining away his anger by saying he was anxious
- 12:02Speaker 1: she might leave him. The insecurity is real, and my
- 12:06Speaker 1: advice is, if you're ever with somebody who's insecure, it's
- 12:10Speaker 1: probably a good idea to get out of Dodge. because
- 12:12Speaker 1: that insecurity is going to lead to some bad shit.
- 12:15Speaker 1: On another occasion, he stole Gabby's wallet to prevent her
- 12:18Speaker 1: from going out without him. Indeed, according to her best
- 12:21Speaker 1: friend Rose Davis, Brian was entirely dismissive of Gabby's vlog idea.
- 12:26Speaker 1: A big reason Brian didn't want her to do the vlog,
- 12:29Speaker 1: she says, is because I think he was worried that
- 12:32Speaker 1: the truth of everything would be on camera. And Rose
- 12:35Speaker 1: seems to have a point. In a selfie later retrieved
- 12:38Speaker 1: from her phone, Gabby is pictured with a black eye.
- 12:40Speaker 1: It was taken on the day of her and Brian's
- 12:43Speaker 1: fight in Moab, moments before police stopped the couple. In
- 12:46Speaker 1: the body cam footage, one of the officers even asked Gabby,
- 12:50Speaker 1: did you get hit in the face? Kind of looks
- 12:51Speaker 1: like something hit you in the face. And how many
- 12:54Speaker 1: times the battered women cover up for the dudes who
- 12:57Speaker 1: battered them. So as a police officer, you have to
- 13:00Speaker 1: discern what's real and what's not. And in this situation,
- 13:03Speaker 1: you have to make an arrest. Let the DA and
- 13:05Speaker 1: the judge figure out what's what. But there was all
- 13:09Speaker 1: kinds of grounds here to make an arrest, and they
- 13:11Speaker 1: didn't do that. and inevitably it led to Gabby being murdered.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Yet perhaps the documentary's most starting revelation is that 10
- 13:19Speaker 1: days after the incident in the desert, on August 22nd,
- 13:23Speaker 1: Gabby contacted an ex-boyfriend and told him she was planning
- 13:26Speaker 1: on leaving Brian. Describing Gabby as his first love, her
- 13:29Speaker 1: ex identified solely as Jackson, admits that from the sound
- 13:33Speaker 1: of her voice, I think that she wasn't sure of
- 13:36Speaker 1: what he would do or what he could do. Jackson
- 13:39Speaker 1: felt that the call was a cry for help, And
- 13:42Speaker 1: when they signed off, implored her to be very careful.
- 13:45Speaker 1: Gabby made her final Instagram post on August 25th, smiling
- 13:48Speaker 1: broadly while holding a crocheted pumpkin. It was also on
- 13:52Speaker 1: this day that Nicole spoke to her daughter for the
- 13:54Speaker 1: last time. Five days later, Nicole received a text from
- 13:57Speaker 1: Gabby's phone explaining that she had no phone service and asking,
- 14:01Speaker 1: can you help Stan? I keep getting his voicemails and
- 14:05Speaker 1: missed calls. My phone doesn't even ring. Stan was Gabby's
- 14:09Speaker 1: grandfather and Nicole thought the message was odd as Gabby
- 14:12Speaker 1: normally referred to him as Grandpa. The FBI later said
- 14:15Speaker 1: that Brian had sent texts from Gabby's phone to trick
- 14:18Speaker 1: the police into thinking that she was still alive.
- 14:21Speaker 2: What an idiot. This moron thought that this stuff would work.
- 14:25Speaker 2: Guess what?
- 14:26Speaker 1: It wasn't going to work. And the best method here
- 14:29Speaker 1: would have been for Brian to do what he did
- 14:31Speaker 1: but before he hurt Gabby. If you're that big of
- 14:34Speaker 1: a scumbag and you want to hurt yourself, go ahead
- 14:36Speaker 1: and do it. But don't take her with you. Over
- 14:41Speaker 1: the next few days, Gabby's family repeatedly tried to get
- 14:43Speaker 1: a hold of her. Worried that both Gabby and Brian
- 14:46Speaker 1: had gone missing on their travels, Nicole texted Roberta on
- 14:49Speaker 1: September 10th. She did not respond. Gabby was going to
- 14:53Speaker 1: be their daughter-in-law, says Gabby's dad Joe. This is a
- 14:56Speaker 1: person that I thought they loved. When he texted the
- 14:59Speaker 1: laundries to tell them he was calling the police, he
- 15:01Speaker 1: was met with silence. Like I can't imagine. There is
- 15:05Speaker 1: zero chance that my parents wouldn't beat the ever-living shit
- 15:08Speaker 1: out of me, even as a grown-ass man. Show up
- 15:11Speaker 1: at my house talking this nonsense, forget it. Never mind
- 15:14Speaker 1: my dad, my mom would kill me. Where's your girlfriend?
- 15:19Speaker 1: Why aren't you with her? What do you mean you
- 15:21Speaker 1: left her there alone? We're going back to get her.
- 15:23Speaker 1: Let's go find her. We don't believe you. Like, for real,
- 15:26Speaker 1: you show up with that bullshit story? Any real parent
- 15:29Speaker 1: who cares about their kid is going to question it,
- 15:32Speaker 1: and then they're going to demand answers. But not if
- 15:34Speaker 1: you're the Laundries. If you're the Laundries, forget it. Let's
- 15:37Speaker 1: protect our kid even if he's a murderer. Because that's
- 15:40Speaker 1: exactly what he is, what he was, what he always
- 15:42Speaker 1: will be. And if there is a heaven and a hell,
- 15:45Speaker 1: we all know that this son of a bitch is
- 15:47Speaker 1: burning in the most bottom layer of hell. A missing
- 15:52Speaker 1: persons report for Gabby was filed on September 11th, which
- 15:55Speaker 1: brought about an incredible twist. Police officers visiting the Laundrie
- 15:59Speaker 1: family home in Florida said, We're surprised to find that
- 16:02Speaker 1: not only was Gabby's van parked in the driveway, but
- 16:05Speaker 1: that Brian was home without her. Body cam footage in
- 16:08Speaker 1: the documentary shows Brian's parents, Roberta and Christopher, refusing to
- 16:12Speaker 1: speak with the officer and offering up their attorney's number instead.
- 16:15Speaker 1: Now look, I really don't fault them for that. Like
- 16:17Speaker 1: I always tell you, if you have to speak to
- 16:19Speaker 1: the police, you should have a lawyer present. But the
- 16:23Speaker 1: whole entire not helping the investigation, not reaching out to
- 16:27Speaker 1: the Petitos to offer help, that is unforgivable. There then
- 16:33Speaker 1: followed the most extraordinary hunt for Gabby. After her father
- 16:36Speaker 1: appealed for help at a press conference in Florida, not
- 16:39Speaker 1: only did local and national news stations run the story,
- 16:42Speaker 1: but amateur sleuths on social media drawn to Gabby's online
- 16:45Speaker 1: posts also started following the case. Gabby's phone had last
- 16:50Speaker 1: been used in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
- 16:53Speaker 1: As the search spanned over 20,000 square miles of rugged terrain,
- 16:57Speaker 1: with officers combing the area on horseback and on foot,
- 17:00Speaker 1: a further twist emerged. On September 17th, Brian was also
- 17:05Speaker 1: reported missing. And how they didn't have any kind of
- 17:08Speaker 1: surveillance on this knucklehead is beyond me. How does the
- 17:12Speaker 1: FBI and the police department let this clown slip out?
- 17:15Speaker 1: You don't have a couple dudes posted up? A few cameras?
- 17:19Speaker 2: Hell, a drone? And it's not going against his rights.
- 17:22Speaker 2: He's a person of interest.
- 17:24Speaker 1: All you have to do is have a team out
- 17:26Speaker 1: there dedicated to following him around to see what's going on.
- 17:29Speaker 1: But no, they didn't do that. and he was able
- 17:31Speaker 1: to slip away, and thus able to ditch justice. As
- 17:37Speaker 1: the attention shifted from Gabby's disappearance to Brian's, a frustrated
- 17:41Speaker 1: Nicole says, I was still thinking, I haven't found my
- 17:44Speaker 1: daughter yet. I need to find my child. By now,
- 17:48Speaker 1: the FBI were receiving up to 300 tips a day
- 17:50Speaker 1: from all over the country. Ironically, it was a couple
- 17:54Speaker 1: of travel vloggers, Jen and Kyle Bethune, who provided the
- 17:57Speaker 1: final breakthrough in Gabby's disappearance. Looking through footage that she
- 18:01Speaker 1: had taken on August 27th, the day Gabby was last
- 18:04Speaker 1: seen alive, Jen noticed Gabby's van hidden away in the
- 18:08Speaker 1: nearby Spread Creek area before Brian drove it back to
- 18:11Speaker 1: his parents' house in Florida. Finally able to narrow down
- 18:15Speaker 1: the search area, investigators found Gabby's body on September 19th.
- 18:20Speaker 1: An autopsy declared her death a homicide by means of
- 18:22Speaker 1: blunt force, trauma, and strangulation. Her stepdad Jim is visibly distraught,
- 18:28Speaker 1: recounting the memory. She was lying on the ground on
- 18:30Speaker 1: her left side in a fetal position, he sobs. Just
- 18:33Speaker 1: laying there on the ground for weeks, left there like
- 18:36Speaker 1: some piece of trash by someone who was supposed to
- 18:39Speaker 1: love her. And that whole entire scenario just must be
- 18:42Speaker 1: such a nightmare. I can't even imagine for a second
- 18:45Speaker 1: what that must be like for a family, a parent,
- 18:48Speaker 1: to go through something like this. At lunchtime on August 27th,
- 18:54Speaker 1: Gabby and Brian had been arguing in a restaurant. when
- 18:57Speaker 1: the couple left abruptly a witness saw her crying. She
- 19:00Speaker 1: later tried to phone Jackson again, but he was busy
- 19:03Speaker 1: at work, and he missed the call. Now look, if
- 19:06Speaker 1: any of my ex-girlfriends ever called me with this kind
- 19:09Speaker 1: of nonsense, talking about someone's treating them like this, yo,
- 19:12Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'm gonna be on a plane.
- 19:15Speaker 1: And there's gonna be a very, very hard conversation coming
- 19:18Speaker 1: your way. And my guess is you'd much rather deal
- 19:21Speaker 1: with the police. Because at that point, the fuck around
- 19:23Speaker 1: stage is over. Now, we're in the find out stage.
- 19:27Speaker 1: And my friend, you're about to find out. Gabby and
- 19:30Speaker 1: Brian were then spotted on security footage at a Whole
- 19:32Speaker 1: Foods in Jackson, Wyoming at 2.13pm. The recording shows Brian
- 19:37Speaker 1: angrily slamming the van door before they enter the store.
- 19:40Speaker 1: It's the last time that Gabby is seen alive. They
- 19:43Speaker 1: then drove to Spread Creek arriving at around 6pm. Investigators
- 19:47Speaker 1: believe Gabby was rearranging files on her computer at around 8.30pm
- 19:52Speaker 1: seemingly the last thing that she ever did. No one
- 19:55Speaker 1: knows exactly what transpired between the couple to result in
- 19:59Speaker 1: Gabby's life being cut so short. My guess is that
- 20:02Speaker 1: whatever occurred at the Tex-Mex joint, the Piggly Wiggly led
- 20:06Speaker 1: to this. So Brian was enraged by what happened and
- 20:10Speaker 1: it carried over. And when they got to the campground
- 20:12Speaker 1: for the night, well, that rage turned into murderous intent.
- 20:17Speaker 1: And then we see the result that we see here.
- 20:19Speaker 1: I don't really think it's that big of a mystery. Now,
- 20:21Speaker 1: of course, that's just speculation, but it seems to fit.
- 20:25Speaker 1: As the documentary reveals, over the next few days, Brian
- 20:28Speaker 1: worked furiously to try to establish an alibi. Not only
- 20:32Speaker 1: did he send text to Gabby's phone to make it
- 20:34Speaker 1: appear as though they were physically apart, but communicating normally...
- 20:38Speaker 1: He also made a $ 700 transaction from Gabby's bank account
- 20:41Speaker 1: to his, writing in the memo, Goodbye, Brian. I'll never
- 20:45Speaker 1: ask you for anything again. What an absolute moron. This
- 20:50Speaker 1: moron thought he would actually get away with it, huh?
- 20:52Speaker 1: And with all that cranial space, you would think that
- 20:55Speaker 1: he'd have a bigger brain, but I guess not. Phone
- 20:57Speaker 1: records show that he called his parents on August 29th
- 21:00Speaker 1: to say that Gabby was gone. They contacted a lawyer
- 21:03Speaker 1: immediately afterwards. I'm sure that conversation was innocuous as hell, huh?
- 21:08Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, you know, she's gone, Dad. She left me.
- 21:11Speaker 1: She found some other man. She's part of a dude ranch.
- 21:14Speaker 1: What does that even mean? You know what he meant
- 21:16Speaker 1: when he said she was gone. Don't try and pump
- 21:19Speaker 1: fake us. An arrest warrant for Brian was issued on
- 21:22Speaker 1: September 23rd, but it's possible that he was already dead.
- 21:26Speaker 2: Oh, I'd say more than possible. Bro was already dead,
- 21:29Speaker 2: no doubt.
- 21:30Speaker 1: More than a week earlier, he told his parents he
- 21:32Speaker 1: was going on a hike to clear his head, and
- 21:34Speaker 1: despite an extensive police search... It was only when the
- 21:37Speaker 1: laundries themselves went looking for him at Carlton Reserve that
- 21:41Speaker 1: Brian was found. And talk about coincidence, huh? They show
- 21:45Speaker 1: up there and all of a sudden they find his remains,
- 21:47Speaker 1: almost like they knew where to look. They discovered his
- 21:51Speaker 1: belongings on October 20th, and shortly afterwards his remains in
- 21:55Speaker 1: a notebook he had penned multiple letters to his family.
- 21:58Speaker 1: I have killed myself by this creek in the hopes
- 22:01Speaker 1: that animals will tear me apart, he wrote in one,
- 22:04Speaker 1: that it may make some of her, Gabby's family, happy.
- 22:07Speaker 1: He also claimed that an accident had killed Gabby and
- 22:10Speaker 1: left her in so much pain that he had killed
- 22:12Speaker 1: her as an act of mercy. As for his mother
- 22:15Speaker 1: Roberta's own burn after reading a letter to her son,
- 22:18Speaker 1: Gabby's friend Rose expresses the sentiments of many when she
- 22:22Speaker 1: brands it disgusting. The extent of the Laundrie's involvement in
- 22:25Speaker 1: Gabby's death and their disposal of her body, according to authorities,
- 22:29Speaker 1: is still unknown. And while no criminal charges have been filed,
- 22:33Speaker 1: in 2022 the Petito-Schmidt family filed a wrongful death suit,
- 22:37Speaker 1: against them, which was settled last year for $ 3 million.
- 22:40Speaker 1: Roberta and Christopher Laundrie provided no input to the documentary.
- 22:46Speaker 1: Gabby's family continue to try to mine some kind of
- 22:48Speaker 1: good from the depths of the tragedy. In 2021, they
- 22:51Speaker 1: set up the Gabby Petito Foundation to help locate missing
- 22:54Speaker 1: persons and assist victims of domestic violence. I can only hope,
- 22:59Speaker 1: Jim says, that we've made her proud and she's looking
- 23:02Speaker 1: down on us saying thank you for being my voice
- 23:04Speaker 1: when I couldn't speak anymore. American Murder, Gabby Petito is
- 23:08Speaker 1: available now on Netflix. And usually I find these documentaries
- 23:12Speaker 1: to be pretty drab and not adding anything, but I
- 23:15Speaker 1: thought that this one was pretty well done. So you
- 23:18Speaker 1: can find it, like I was just saying, on Netflix
- 23:20Speaker 1: if you're interested in checking it out, but there's no
- 23:23Speaker 1: doubt that the Laundries, in my opinion, know a lot
- 23:25Speaker 1: more than they've ever let on. And I think that
- 23:28Speaker 1: $ 3 million payout tells us all we need to know
- 23:32Speaker 1: about their liability.
- 23:33Speaker 2: Unfortunately.
- 23:34Speaker 1: It'll never turn into criminal liability, but in my opinion,
- 23:38Speaker 1: it damn well should have. All right, folks, that's going
- 23:40Speaker 1: to do it for this one. All of the information
- 23:42Speaker 1: that goes with this episode can be found in the
- 23:45Speaker 1: description box.