Original subtitles

♪♪

-The Gabby Petito Brian Laundrie story

just captivated us.

-It had so many classic elements of American storytelling --

the westward-bound adventure, influencer culture.

-On social media, you see a picture

of this perfect relationship, full of fun and life and energy.

But actually what was going on behind the scenes

was something quite different.

♪♪

-So, what happened here and here?

-At what point did it go wrong?

Was it always wrong,

and the online picture was just a lie?

-Still no sign of 22-year-old Gabby Petito.

[ Protesters chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

-Brian had shown back up at his parents' house in her van.

But where was Gabby?

-I'm asking for help from the parents of Brian.

-Who leaves with the love of his life

and returns without her and doesn't say a word?

Who does that?

-What were you thinking, helping your son?

-The Laundries, they had to know something.

-The Petitos were involved in a legal battle

against Brian Laundrie's parents.

A lawsuit making some really explosive allegations

about who knew what and when.

Brian Laundrie called his parents

and said that Gabby was gone.

-And they keep this quiet for weeks and weeks?

-You had a Romeo-and-Juliet doomsday scenario,

and I think that that's what made it so riveting

for so many people.

♪♪

-Hello, hello.

Looking to steal some of his granola.

-The tent is just coming in on me.

The wind is so bad.

♪♪

-Sorry. I'm, like, wandering around.

I'm just anxious,

so I'm just like, "Let me walk around."

[ Sighs ]

Hi.

How do you feel? -As I said, anxious.

♪♪

Gabby is definitely my best friend.

♪♪

She was one of those people that you lose words for

'cause you're just like, "I've never met anyone like you."

Anyone that I introduced her to,

she would leave, and they're like, "I love her.

Where did she come from?"

-I spent a year covering the Gabby Petito story

for Vanity Fair,

and, basically, forensically reconstructed her life

just by following her social-media pages.

♪♪

Gabby Petito grew up in Blue Point, Long Island.

It's a really small town with a population

of less than 5,000 people.

Gabby had very loving home life,

but her parents had her when they were quite young,

and they ended up going their separate ways

and starting new families.

And so Gabby grew up a bit of a nomad,

going back and forth between her parents' homes.

-Gabby is the eldest of many siblings

and definitely played that role.

She was close to all four of her parents.

They were all considered her moms and her dads.

-People who knew Gabby Petito growing up described her

as being beautiful inside and out.

Gabby loved butterflies. She loved the color aqua blue.

She loved the Beatles song "Let It Be."

♪♪

-Gabby always loved art.

She was always, like, doodling.

She loved nature. She loved taking photos.

-Gabby Petito was just this bright,

beautiful young woman.

But she was a bit of an outsider,

sort of marched to her own beat.

♪♪

-Growing up, Gabby seemed to have friends,

but she didn't really feel like she fit in completely

and spent a lot of time online.

-Gabby used the Internet as a résumé, a diary, a mirror.

And the more online she went, the less unusual she felt.

♪♪

Brian and Gabby started talking

when Brian was a junior in high school

and Gabby was a sophomore.

Brian Laundrie left a huge amount of information

about himself online, and based on his drawings,

he was very obsessed with copying comic-book characters,

and he would post those online.

So Brian is sort of, like, the artistic buddy

that Gabby's never had.

-Brian Laundrie was really a mystery.

There were not a lot of people

that we were able to find who really knew him.

Anyone who we could identify, they wouldn't speak with us.

-Brian graduated in 2016

and stuck around Blue Point and got a job.

Gabby graduated high school in 2017, a year after Brian,

and they stay friends for years. Just friends.

And by July of 2019, she and Brian are an item.

♪♪

They bond over this desire to see nature,

to see national parks,

to see places that look nothing like where they grew up.

And that drove them together in a sort of intense, intense way.

♪♪

At the time, van life is trending online,

and it's part of this emerging ethos

of, like, living with less and eco dwellings.

-Welcome, guys, to another episode,

and we've been on the road,

traveling in a ton of different vans.

-You buy a van, you turn it into

almost like a little apartment inside, and you go explore.

-2020, we had the chance to create

what we think is the ultimate van layout.

-During COVID, it got very popular with young people.

-Gabby purchased the van and converted it

because she was the one who wanted to live out

this van life, and it was a dream of hers.

And by sharing their van-life journey,

they could make money someday

through their blog and through sharing the videos.

-Gabby's goal was to become, like, a travel blogger,

to become successful in terms of posting videos

and pictures of this van-life culture.

-If we looked back through Gabby and Brian's social media,

the picture that emerged was one that was perfect.

They seemed to be madly in love.

-Brian's stretching, doing some morning yoga.

-Their journey looked so innocent.

You couldn't look away.

♪♪

-Online, it was a fairytale life.

They were kissing in front of road signs,

they were perched on cliffs.

But behind closed doors, in their van,

things were unraveling.

-Gabby had been talking to her family throughout the trip,

and all of a sudden,

they weren't hearing from her anymore.

-The last time that Gabby's parents had any contact with her

was August 25th.

♪♪

-On September 1, 2021,

Brian arrives home to Florida, where his parents are living.

-Brian Laundrie had shown up

at his parents' house in her van,

but, like, where was Gabby?

-The last time that Gabby's parents

had any contact with their daughter was August 25th.

Gabby's parents ultimately report her missing

on September 11th.

♪♪

-I found out Gabby was missing through the news,

and took me a minute to, like, comprehend it.

I don't even know how to describe how I felt.

I immediately went to social media

and was like, "All right, let me do what I can.

Let's get her name out there. Let's get her face out there."

People that didn't even know her were like,

"We have to find her.

We have to do this." It was very powerful.

-A young girl, doesn't look older than 23...

-Pause this, screenshot it, share this.

-It was starting to bubble up on social media

that there was this missing young woman, Gabby Petito.

So we drove to North Port, Florida,

to the Laundries' house.

I thought we would be there just a couple of days.

We ended up staying about six weeks.

-Gabby Petito hasn't been heard from

since the last week of August.

-Brian Laundrie showed up at his home in Florida

on September 1st.

-Five days later,

the police hold a press conference with Joe Petito.

♪♪

♪♪

-At this time,

I'm going to allow Joe, Gabby's dad

to come up and say a few words.

-All right. What I need from everybody here is help,

because the -- the goal is still not met,

and that goal is to bring Gabby home safe.

-Joe Petito tried to maintain a very, very brave face,

but it came through, his desperation and the trauma

that he and the rest of his family members

were going through.

-As a mom, I had concerns for my daughter

going on a road trip in general, but I felt safe.

They were together. They had a plan.

-Justice needs to be served.

-We basically camped out outside the Laundries' house.

It turned into this circus that I really didn't expect.

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

-We'll be out here every day!

-Come out, Laundries!

-Suffolk County put out a nationwide alert for Gabby.

♪♪

At that moment in the investigation,

the goal is to find Gabby alive.

♪♪

-One of the first steps of the investigation focused

on collecting as much data as we could to try to track

exactly where the last location Brian and Gabby were.

Cell towers put them

in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

The initial general area was almost 20,000 square miles.

♪♪

A thorough analysis led us

to the Spread Creek Dispersion area,

which was the last known location of cellular

telephone activity of Gabby Petito.

At that point, we set up an on-site command post

and started planning for a physical grid search

by our search-and-rescue team.

♪♪

-As a reporter, the first thing I did

was go and knock on the door

to see if the Laundries wanted to talk.

That's when we realized they weren't gonna talk.

It's important to point out that the boyfriend

right now is not a suspect.

Police say he's not a person of interest,

but they want to talk to him,

and they say he will not talk to detectives.

And his parents, who are in the house behind me,

are also not talking to detectives right now.

As far as we knew, Brian Laundrie

was inside the house,

but he refused to say a word about Gabby,

which didn't make a lot of sense.

Where is the boyfriend?

We're outside the boyfriend's parents' right now,

just outside Tampa. Take a look.

So we basically made this agreement with the neighbors

just to the right of the Laundries

that we could camp out on their lawn.

Mr. Laundrie, do you know anything

about what happened to Gabby Petito?

Why aren't you talking?

-This case just seemed, right from the get-go,

to be filled with mystery, with intrigue,

and then with a massive dose of frustration.

Where was she,

and why was Brian Laundrie being so silent?

Who leaves with the love of his life and returns without her

and doesn't say a word? Who does that?

♪♪

-Police say the ongoing silence

from the Brian Laundrie's family

is making an already complex case even more challenging.

-I saw all over the news that Gabby was missing,

and I felt an instant connection to her.

♪♪

Brian wasn't talking, and the parents weren't talking.

So straight away, you've got this

very suspicious set of circumstances.

And why would they not tell the Petitos

key information about their daughter?

♪♪

-Why are we so obsessed with missing young,

beautiful women in this country?

Why does it get so much more media attention

and public attention?

I think it preys on our worst fears.

The loss of innocence and the loss of purity.

-Where's Gabby, Brian?!

-Where's Gabby? -Where is Gabby?!

-Where's Gabby, Brian?! We're out here!

-People started coming from all over the country

to scream and yell and protest about the Laundries' behavior,

about their silence.

-Stop hiding inside your house, Brian!

Come out! Gabby's family want answers!

-Social media played a huge role.

People were weighing in. People were watching video,

clearly for clues.

-We have a lot to unpack in this Gabby Petito case.

-This Gabby Petito case.

-She has since gone missing while he returned home.

-On August 25th, she also posted

an Instagram post, but it was not like her.

This is an update in the Gabby Petito case.

What really resonated with me about Gabby Petito and her story

was that I could see a lot of myself in her.

We were similar age.

I was also a YouTuber at the time.

The hashtag #FindGabbyPetito got millions of views

as people were sharing updates.

We don't know where she is,

but we need to spread this information and help find Gabby.

-Gabby Petito has gone missing in Grand Teton...

-So this is incredibly suspicious.

-The last time that her mom spoke to her on the phone...

People were wanting to know more,

so I just kept searching for updates and sharing about them.

The FBI Denver Twitter account posted this.

-One of the key investigative steps this day and age

is to scrub somebody's social media to learn more about them.

We did that with both Brian and Gabby

in this case.

I didn't see anything that would lead us to think

anything nefarious had gone on at that point in time.

-So, on social media, you see a picture

of this perfect relationship.

They're traveling across America

and full of fun and life and energy.

But, actually, what was going on behind the scenes

was something quite different.

♪♪

-You can't keep chocolate in Utah.

Not in July. [ Both laugh ]

-Was the online picture just a lie,

or did something happen on this road trip?

At what point did it go wrong? Was it always wrong?

To truly understand why,

we have to go back to the beginning.

♪♪

-Not everyone is aware that the Gabby and Brian

actually went on their first road trip back in 2019.

They quit their jobs, they went on a cross-country road trip.

It was in Gabby's Nissan Sentra.

And in their social media,

we can see the beginnings of a toxic relationship.

♪♪

-Looking at the post that Gabby made about Dallas, Texas,

the caption says, "Hello! I'm having a great time."

What's interesting to me about this photo is,

it doesn't yet include Brian.

♪♪

On October 17th,

Gabby posted a new photo from Colorado Springs.

And, again, just her.

Brian is not pictured in these, either.

Gabby is a person who naturally understands what sells.

No one wants to see a pretty influencer in a relationship.

It fits with this brand of a nomadic lifestyle,

you know, not being tied down.

-I think the first trip that they take together,

that clearly is a dream trip for Gabby.

But the omission of him is interesting.

Did that cause tension? Was he upset about that?

♪♪

-Late October, Gabby and Brian make it to California.

♪♪

While Gabby is getting her fortune told

at the Santa Monica Pier,

Brian is making a post that says, "L.A. sucks."

And why does he actually feel that way?

Is it because Gabby's not posting pictures of him?

♪♪

In this first road trip, we're starting to see elements

of the relationship that will become a problem later on,

namely Brian's jealousy and Gabby's independence.

♪♪

♪♪

-Now to the disappearance of Gabby Petito.

The missing Long Island woman

is making headlines coast to coast tonight

as the case literally stretches across the country.

Investigators are now calling the boyfriend

a person of interest.

♪♪

-When Brian Laundrie was named the person of interest,

the North Port Police Department had primary jurisdiction

over the case and were handling the surveillance

of Brian Laundrie.

-They started watching that residence to see

if they could find Brian to talk to him.

He was seen at one point, but he was never questioned.

-Did you guys look through Brian Laundrie's Instagram?

It's very -- You know what? Let me show you.

-Totally think he did something.

-Own up to what you did,

and don't act like you're innocent

'cause innocent people don't run and hide.

-Almost immediately,

the case becomes a social-media sensation,

and Brian starts being on the receiving end of that attention.

People are going to his social-media pages,

leaving mean comments,

harassing him in all these ways.

-Brian, if you're listening to me right now,

let me tell you something.

You may have done the wrong thing then.

Do the right thing now.

♪♪

-In mid September,

several days after Gabby Petito was reported missing,

Brian Laundrie's parents issued a statement

through their attorney, expressing hope

that "the search for Miss Petito would be successful

and that she would be reunited with her family."

But Brian Laundrie's parents weren't talking to the media

or police at that point.

And Brian Laundrie was staying totally silent.

♪♪

-It seemed really perplexing to everyone

that Brian wasn't hauled down to the station

and made to answer tough questions.

Clearly, the happiness that they conveyed on social media,

that wasn't necessarily the full picture.

-Based on what Gabby's friends later told the media,

the romantic relationship between Gabby and Brian

is really tumultuous from the very beginning.

Friends described it as toxic.

But toxic or not, shortly after Gabby and Brian

returned from their first road trip in 2019,

Brian convinces Gabby to move with him to Florida.

♪♪

-For Gabby, she's leaving behind her friends

and her family and that support network.

But for Brian, it means that he gets her to himself.

-After Gabby moves with Brian to Florida,

she goes on to a site called Bumble BFF

where people can go on and find friends.

And it's on this site that Gabby finds Rose Davis.

♪♪

-I just didn't have friends at the time, and so --

[ Chuckles ] -- we matched.

♪♪

And we started hanging out like every other day or every week.

It was just like, "I don't need any other friends.

We're good."

We would go do TikTok dances and be weird out in public.

Like, we just never cared.

♪♪

-Gabby starts sleeping over at Rose's house a lot.

Whenever there's an issue with Brian, she'll go over there.

-It's okay. It's fine.

-I have the video of her breaking into my room

because she locked us out.

She fell in the bush a little bit,

but we managed to get in.

It was great. She got dirt all over my bed.

It was fantastic. [ Chuckles ]

♪♪

-Brian is already a jealous guy,

so the fact that she has this close friend

and they're sleeping in the same bed on nights

when Gabby and Brian fight,

it drives him bananas, drives him crazy.

He insists on picking her up from Rose's place

instead of letting Rose drive her home.

He is very, very territorial and competitive with Rose.

♪♪

-One night, Rose and Gabby,

they were gonna go out together,

and Brian was very upset about this.

-He resorts to taking her I.D.

so that she cannot go out with Rose.

He shoves her, and she slaps him.

♪♪

And then she flees to Rose's house and tells Rose

that Brian's episodes get physical.

-These aren't episodes.

This is somebody who's trying to control Gabby.

They're only going to get worse.

-After living in Florida together for a little while,

COVID's in full swing, probably a bit stir-crazy.

Gabby and Brian come together

over the idea of a house on wheels.

♪♪

-Van life is all about couples, too.

It's an idea that allows Brian

to enter the framework of Gabby's online presence.

Gabby buys the van.

The van is registered in Gabby's name.

But this blowout with Gabby and sleeping in Rose's bed,

it pushes Brian to the brink where he's like,

"We need to leave. I need to get her out of here."

♪♪

So he jump-starts the road trip early.

♪♪

-The van life kind of -- Like she wanted to do that,

and she talked about it,

but it kind of came out of nowhere.

When she was like, "I'm doing this,"

I was like, "What's going on?"

Between you and I, no, I didn't want her to leave.

♪♪

-Brian and Gabby take off in this tiny, cramped van.

What they thought was gonna be a world-opening,

romance-enhancing trip

was actually just like a pressure cooker.

♪♪

♪♪

Gabby's first post during the van-life road trip

is tagged in Monument Rocks.

It, to me, speaks to how new this was to her,

this sort of influencer thing.

But she was getting the hang of that,

how to represent herself in a way that was engaging.

-She was a talented editor,

so she was able to edit things to make it look like,

you know, that perfect life

that everybody hopes that they can have

and likes to portray on social media.

♪♪

-July 8, 2021 Gabby posts from Colorado Springs.

Gabby's having fun.

She's climbing mountains, having a great time.

Brian is not in any of these pictures yet.

That's worth noting.

♪♪

About a month into the road trip,

life on the road starts to get very complicated

for Gabby and Brian.

♪♪

I'm going through Brian's Instagram posts.

So, this is in Utah.

This is classic Brian Laundrie.

He posts, "Zion is proof that mankind can ruin anything,

even in an effort to preserve it.

Beautiful park just with an unfortunate infestation

of human beings."

Brian was definitely very misanthropic,

hated people, a loner, liked being alone,

whereas Gabby was extroverted, a people person, and easygoing.

Nobody had a real understanding of what was going on

with Gabby and Brian behind closed doors,

because they did such a good job of making that a secret.

♪♪

On August 12th, about six weeks into their road trip,

Gabby and Brian go to a coffee shop in Moab

around 9:00 a.m. so that Gabby

can work on their van-life website.

♪♪

He, for some reason,

is infuriated by her trying to do this work.

Thanks to the Internet, she's connected to the whole world,

and he can't stand it.

And so he tries to punish her, taking away her phone,

taking away her lens into the world.

-It's this chip, chip, chip.

It's the taking of a confident young woman

and psychologically undoing her.

♪♪

-In my experience, perpetrators never --

they never de-escalate.

-It was August 12th when a 911 call came in in Moab, Utah.

There was a witness who saw a young man striking a woman.

We later find out that that was Brian Laundrie striking Gabby.

-What I think happened on that sidewalk

is there was a slap.

Gabby retaliated, tried to grab her phone.

Once she had her phone,

she tried to use it to hit Brian.

And then he locks the car

so she can't get into the passenger door,

and she manages to force her way in

before he can drive away without her.

So next thing that Gabby knows,

she's speeding out of Moab, Utah,

in the passenger seat of her van.

Brian is rage driving.

♪♪

-When they pulled Brian and Gabby over,

it's all on multiple body-camera videos.

-Gabby. -I'm Brian.

♪♪

-Gabby's very upset.

It should be clear that she is the victim right from the start.

-Gabby Petito started blaming herself for the violence,

started making excuses for why she was hurt

and that it was her fault because she was OCD.

-I wonder how many times Brian has said that she's mean,

that she's the problem.

That's what I often hear from victims.

The narrative that then becomes dominant is his,

and she's trying to protect him.

-Okay.

-Now we see a parks officer turn up.

Brian's now center of attention.

-So, when you look at Gabby,

it's clear she's really upset,

and he's just saying it's a little disagreement,

it's a little squabble. Well, it wasn't.

-Cops pretty quickly come to the determination

that Brian Laundrie is actually the victim in the situation,

which, you know, when you watch all the video,

looking back, it's pretty clear that that's not the case.

-Gabby tells the officers that she hit him first,

and they run with that.

-The fact that Gabby acts it out --

the hand over the face, the nose and the mouth --

is important.

This picture was taken by Gabby on her phone.

She looks distressed.

When women take pictures like this,

it's for evidence in case something terrible happens.

-It became crystal clear that just five weeks

into this cross-country journey,

the Gabby Petito/Brian Laundrie love story

wasn't what we thought it was.

-All of a sudden, this fairytale couple

that was sort of enjoying this wonderful,

whimsical cross-country trip,

now we saw how broken she was and how manipulative he was.

-When I saw the video of Gabby

crying to these police officers and blaming herself,

my heart was broken.

Because in my line of work,

this is classic domestic violence.

The woman blamed herself.

-Meanwhile, Brian is nervous,

and he's looking at her, and he's looking away.

He thinks he's about to get caught

and he wants to know what she's been telling them.

And lucky for him, they're not asking her the right questions,

and they're only interested in what he has to say.

I mean, it goes -- it goes in an insane direction.

-The minute Officer Robbins says, "You seem manic,"

what Brian does is then

deflect onto Gabby and says, "She's crazy."

He then starts to put Gabby under the microscope.

He falls into Brian's manipulations.

-You can tell that, you know, they are not viewing Brian

as the attacker in the situation.

One of the officers is sort of, like, joking around with Brian.

There was this weird little bro thing happening.

-All the male officers all almost want to high-five him

and fist-bump him at that point.

"Women are crazy. We get it, bro."

And this whole narrative now

starts to become much more sinister.

-He laughs. He is baffled,

and he can't quite believe how this has turned out.

And neither can I.

-One of the things that stuck out in that body-cam footage

was he was laughing about the entire incident.

The demeanor Brian showed on video was concerning,

and that's just not something

that we see during a domestic incident.

-My blood boils just seeing how this is conveyed.

You couldn't get this more wrong.

Brian could charm people and manipulate people.

I mean, we just saw on camera him do it

to two uniformed officers and two park rangers.

I mean, this is just maddening to me.

He is so pleased that he's pulled this off.

And he's got his backpack on,

and now he's being given a lift to the hotel.

And Gabby, well, she doesn't really matter.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

This just enables him, and it greenlights him,

and it's just a travesty that this happened.

♪♪

-Social media just exploded

when the body-cam video of the Moab incident broke.

♪♪

People right away realized that Gabby looked to be

a distressed victim of domestic violence.

♪♪

-This was real, raw footage,

not curated by somebody, posted on social media.

It was what was actually going on with her.

And seeing her crying and hurt

and upset was just so heartbreaking.

And that's why people became even more motivated

to want to find her.

♪♪

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

-We're outside Gabby's boyfriend's house,

where we have been for days, and he is still not coming out,

and he is still not talking to police,

even despite this new body-cam video.

-Once the Moab Police in Utah released that body-cam incident,

the public outrage in this case grew even more intense.

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

It really struck a chord with

other victims of domestic violence...

♪♪

...so much so that several of them got in vehicles

and drove hundreds and hundreds of miles

to just be on the Laundries' front lawn

and put a face to domestic violence.

-Dirty Laundrie! This house should be burned!

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

-Things started to really

get crazy outside the Laundries' house.

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

People from all over the country started either bringing

or having flowers delivered to the Laundries' house.

So, every day, all day florists would be delivering flowers

on behalf of Gabby,

and they were just one after another --

flowers, flowers, flowers.

♪♪

I remember talking to Joe Petito about the video.

And you can imagine -- I mean,

if it was heartbreaking for us covering it,

for them to see it, it was really, really troubling.

We were all waiting to see how Moab Police would respond,

how they would explain what happened with the traffic stop.

It was five months later

that they finally released a statement,

and the statement said, "The independent agency's

investigative report finds that the officers

who responded to the incident

made several unintentional mistakes

that stemmed from the fact the officers failed to cite

Ms. Petito for domestic violence."

So even if they just thought that Brian was the victim,

if they had arrested Gabby in that moment,

you know, that could've changed everything.

-I'm sorry. I'm really bad with names.

Gabby? -Yeah.

-The domestic dispute between Brian and Gabby,

it certainly struck a chord

with the investigative team at that point in time.

It already had been to the level of physical altercation in Utah,

and in my experience as an investigator,

domestic offenders, it doesn't just necessarily stop.

If anything, it will escalate, and that was concerning to us.

♪♪

-Shortly after the traffic stop,

Brian's father pays to have Brian flown back to Florida

for about six days while Gabby stays behind in Utah.

-We still, to this day,

don't know what the point of that trip was

and can only speculate that they needed a break

after this domestic violence.

And Brian went home and let this settle down for a little while.

♪♪

-The period of time that Gabby spends in Utah

without Brian is significant because she is,

for the first time in a very long time, alone

and able to think without Brian picking fights

or getting in her face.

This might have been a period of time where she began to

think seriously about ending the relationship with Brian.

-We obtained a lot of cellular data for that time period

when Brian traveled to Florida,

where Gabby had contacts with old friends.

And there's been a theory that maybe Brian caught wind,

that she was talking to old friends, some of them male,

and that could have spun him up or agitated him.

♪♪

-During the time Brian is gone in Florida,

Gabby uploads her magnum opus --

their first van-life video.

-Gabby Petito, who never goes outside.

[ Laughs ]

-What's immediately interesting to me

about this video is that it includes

a lot of footage from road trip number one.

They look genuinely happy because they are.

And I can't help but wonder,

maybe it also helped her realize

that everything that was good

about their relationship was in the past.

So why didn't Gabby just leave Brian

during this six-day period of time?

-The answer is, sadly,

a story that's been written over and over and over again

by domestic-violence victims.

And sadly, these victims truly love their abusers,

and they don't want the relationship to end.

♪♪

-According to witnesses and the evidence

that's gathered in the investigation,

on August the 23rd, 2021,

Brian returns from his six-day trip in Florida

back to rejoin Gabby in Utah,

and they check out of their Salt Lake City hotel.

And at this point, it looks like they're headed for Wyoming.

♪♪

-Scholars say that the most dangerous part

of an abusive relationship

is when a victim decides to leave.

And given how quickly things escalated next,

I think that Gabby decided she was going to leave Brian.

-The worst thing that could happen was her saying,

"Enough. I've had enough,"

because his biggest fear was Gabby leaving him.

♪♪

♪♪

-After setting up camp at the Grand Teton National Forest,

Brian and Gabby drive about an hour

to a Tex-Mex restaurant in Jackson,

and they have lunch.

They happen to be seated near a couple

that witnesses everything that happens next.

-I could tell that the waitress and, um --

they were having, like, some type of heated discussion.

By like the second or third time the waitress

returned to the table, they, like, stood up

from their seats and abruptly, like, walked out.

We were kind of like, "Mm, that was weird."

And then Brian Laundrie comes back in.

And that's why it was kind of a scene,

because it was like, "Oh, my God, this guy

who was just creeping us out, he just walked back in."

-I just have, like, a vivid memory

of looking over there at the hostess then,

and he's just like...

-Yeah. -...kind of red-faced

kind of talking to her,

and his hands are going everywhere,

just, like, chewing her out about something.

-It was just kind of -- It was scary.

I can still remember the feeling

that I got from him to this very day.

♪♪

-According to eyewitness accounts,

Brian and Gabby leave without paying

or try to convince the restaurant

to refund them the money.

I can't say for sure what was going on,

but why did Brian have this outburst?

What was the thing that upset him?

And I hope the thing that upset him was that she dumped him.

♪♪

-During the course of the investigation,

we found some lines of communication

in which either Brian and/or Gabby

mentioned Gabby leaving him

or going away or finding a new boyfriend.

It was a strong theory of ours that maybe, um,

the relationship was growing to a head.

-We've got escalation.

There was explosive anger and rage by Brian.

He's not even worried about people witnessing it.

♪♪

-Shortly after the incident at the restaurant,

Gabby and Brian make their way to a nearby grocery store

where things get weird.

♪♪

-Jackson Police Department helped us find video

of Brian and Gabby

at one of the local grocery stores.

♪♪

-It was crystal clear

how angry Brian Laundrie was in that moment.

♪♪

-He appeared to slam the door out in the parking lot.

So that, combined with what had happened at the restaurant,

things just were sort of unraveling

between Brian and Gabby, it seems.

♪♪

-You can see camera footage of them

actually entering the store

and then walking around the store.

They don't make a purchase.

-You can see they're not really shopping.

And, finally, I see what appears to be

her putting something in her bag and them leaving.

And they never go to a cash register to pay.

My take, that may never be proven,

but it seemed to me that Brian Laundrie

was asking Gabby Petito to shoplift.

-Brian had claimed that he and Gabby had no money.

It's not true.

Brian had about $20,000 in his checking account.

-All of these little pieces we see -- with Moab,

with the situation at the Tex-Mex restaurant,

with the situation that occurred in the grocery store --

we see a clear picture of how completely broken

their relationship was by this point.

♪♪

♪♪

-And if Brian Laundrie turns out to know

more than he's saying right now,

he might have to actually face charges

in each of those jurisdictions, which means extradition

and a domino effect of legal problems all over the country.

There were a lot of twists and turns in this case.

♪♪

There was a lot of outrage, frustration.

But the tie that bound all of these narratives together

was the fact that Gabby was still missing,

and a family was still desperate to find her.

-Do you think something bad has happened to her?

-I believe she's -- she's gonna come home.

-Gabby's parents kept making sure

that their daughter was in the news,

that people were still making efforts to find their daughter.

-We don't have Gabby. We haven't lost focus of that.

And that's something, you know, we're still spearheading.

We got to get her home safe.

I'm about to break down.

-The entire situation must have been a nightmare

for her family, not knowing where she was.

♪♪

Then social media jumped in

and wanted to get answers for Gabby's family.

♪♪

-Her captions were a lot deeper,

detailing her travels, tagging the location,

and this photo didn't do it.

-There were theories about, you know,

Gabby having taken off on her own

or Gabby having gotten into an accident.

-Social media was kind of exploding

during this whole time period.

-Okay. So, the only update that I have right now is...

-So the two actually lived with Brian's parents.

-So they weren't sure it was actually her.

-Over and over and over.

-Now look at the trails she has saved.

I screenshotted it, so here we go.

Grand Teton Park, Grand Teton Park.

-You had a lot of these social-media sleuths

who were digging through Gabby and Brian's social media,

trying to find witnesses, trying to find people

who may have seen them while they were on their road trip.

-There's all this new information about Brian

renting a storage unit and leaving Gabby in Utah.

-We followed up on every single tip,

probably 300 to 400 tips per day,

and the analysts did an outstanding job vetting out each

and every lead that came in

so we could determine whether we needed to act on it

and provide that feedback to the team

on the ground up in Wyoming.

At that point in the investigation,

we're thinking foul play, and, hopefully, we're wrong.

But because of where this occurred,

in rural Wyoming during that time of year,

if there is a person out there lost or a body out there,

we got to find it right away.

♪♪

♪♪

-NewsNation correspondent Brian Entin

is live for us tonight in North Port, Florida.

Brian, is Brian Laundrie in that home behind you tonight?

-Well, Marty, just within the last two minutes,

this story has taken a very, very strange and dramatic turn.

Apparently, we have just learned police do not know

where Brian Laundrie is right now.

Suddenly, Brian Laundrie was missing,

where it was like, "Oh, my gosh.

This story has gotten even crazier."

[ Protesters shouting ]

-This was like gasoline being thrown on an inferno.

The story was already blanketing the headlines.

-Tonight, all eyes are on one house

in a Florida neighborhood.

-And, suddenly, it goes nuclear.

Brian Laundrie is missing. How did that happen?

I mean, we all thought he was inside the house.

-This is his house behind me.

-What were you thinking, helping your son?

-We've been watching the house for days.

Tonight, the police showed up at the house,

the FBI showed up at the house.

They went inside the house. They came back out.

They got evidence bags. They went back in.

The weirdest thing about him missing was,

we were all out there, and there were FBI agents

outside the house in unmarked cars.

There were cameras in the trees. It didn't make any sense.

-Brian Laundrie was able to come out the front door,

get into the Mustang in the front driveway,

pull out of the driveway, and drive off.

♪♪

All unnoticed.

The North Port Police,

who were supposed to be watching the house,

somehow believed that it was Roberta Laundrie.

Now, I don't know how you mix those two people up.

-There was a lot of frustration from people

all over the world thinking like,

"Gosh, did they drop the ball?

Like, how did Brian Laundrie just drive away?"

♪♪

-Brian was missing, and the the shock waves

that that sent through all of us

who are following this investigation were massive.

-Brian is nowhere to be located.

They do not know where he is.

-The police did not announce an exact timeframe,

but the last time that they saw him was on Tuesday.

-It was like, "How could he be missing?"

He's the one that has answers about Gabby

and what happened, and he's -- he's gone.

♪♪

-When I first learned

that Brian's parents had reported him missing,

I felt like he had escaped the country.

That's what the theory --

"Oh, maybe he's on the run, and this is bigger."

♪♪

-Initially, there was no specific location

given of where Brian was,

so people all over the country were looking for him.

I was getting, like, direct messages in my Twitter,

like, every day, all day of people

who thought that they had seen Brian Laundrie.

♪♪

How confident are you --

I mean, seeing pictures of Brian Laundrie --

that it was definitely him?

-The rumors on social media were going crazy.

Brian Laundrie lookalikes were literally, like,

being chased through mountainsides and parking lots.

-A bunch of people kept coming up to me

and asking if I was Brian Laundrie.

Some were very serious.

-Gabby's parents want answers!

-They deserve answers!

-Outside, the Laundries' house

became even more of, like, a circus-like atmosphere.

You had a lot of people showing up very upset.

People started calling the Laundries the Dirty Laundries.

♪♪

They would bring laundry baskets and put them out on the lawn

to sort of like, you know, represent the Dirty Laundries.

♪♪

♪♪

-Brian is missing, which is shocking.

But don't forget -- Gabby is still missing, too.

So while police in North Port, Florida,

try to figure out what happened to Brian Laundrie,

2,000 miles away, in Wyoming,

hundreds of law-enforcement officers

start a massive ground search for Gabby Petito.

♪♪

-We initiated that physical search for Gabby

in the Spread Creek Dispersion Area on September 18, 2021.

This area in Wyoming is extremely rural.

You have grizzly bears in the area.

You had wolves in the area.

This was steep terrain, rocks, boulders, creeks.

This was a task that is not for most people.

So, day one, we searched the entire south side

of the Spread Creek Dispersion Area.

There was a pair of underwear recovered,

there were cigarette butts, there was a hammock recovered.

We didn't know whether they were evidence or not.

We thought, "Is it just some hiker dropped it,

or is Gabby out there?"

♪♪

-Gabby's parents, at this point, are desperate.

They have not heard from their 22-year-old daughter in weeks,

and what they don't know is that the police now have a clue

that's going to narrow the search.

-Here it is on the left.

-And it is a major break in the case.

♪♪

-As we were still searching for Gabby there in Wyoming,

law enforcement was also searching for Brian Laundrie.

-He was reported missing from the parents,

and they said he had gone on a hike at the Carlton Reserve.

Law enforcement searched the park,

full throttle, with all resources.

-The Carlton Reserve,

which is about 15 minutes from the Laundries' house,

it's this big wildlife reserve, a swamp.

Alligators, mosquitoes.

♪♪

-The Carlton Reserve is massive,

like the size of Manhattan.

It's one thing to go for a walk.

It's another thing to try to find a missing person in there.

It's like a needle in a haystack.

♪♪

-Law enforcement also knew that he took a gun.

There was one gun missing

from Chris Laundrie's gun collection,

and that was a revolver.

So all of this was known.

-It's quite strange

because Brian allegedly drove to the Carlton Reserve,

but his car is not in the parking lot.

So what people later find out is,

his parents go get his car, and they drive it home.

Like, what?

So it's all very, very weird.

-Which leads me to the question,

what do Mr. and Mrs. Laundrie

know about where their son was and where he is now?

♪♪

At this point, the Laundries have to know something.

It's impossible they don't know something.

♪♪

-Social media certainly pays off.

There's pros and cons to it,

but it was essential in the search for Gabby in Wyoming.

One of the key tips that we received

and located was from the Bethunes.

This is a couple who were Internet entrepreneurs

and had allegedly been in that area

and believed that they had captured video

of Gabby and Brian's van.

-On August 27, 2021,

we got camera footage going through the Grand Tetons Park.

-The Bethunes had a dash cam

that was constantly rolling, so they thought,

"Let's go back and look through

all of our raw video from the dash cam."

On this one dirt road,

pretty much in the middle of nowhere...

-Here it is on the left.

-...Gabby Petito's van is right there on the side of the road.

So they put the video on social media.

-And I slowed it down

so you can possibly see it a little bit better.

-When they were editing the footage,

they couldn't believe what they saw.

♪♪

-They actually saw the van.

♪♪

-They had done an excellent job of capturing that video.

So that, compiled with the video of Brian and Gabby

that was obtained at the grocery store,

we could prove, without a doubt, that this is them,

that were in the area on August 27th of 2021.

♪♪

-The Bethunes' video, that really cracked the case open.

♪♪

-We took that tip, and we were able to

do some overlay of mapping technology

to determine exactly where that van was parked.

♪♪

So we've scheduled the day two search,

which was just north of where that van was located.

♪♪

That morning, on September 19th, I don't know why we felt like

that was the day that we were going to find Gabby.

♪♪

We focused on the north side

of the Spread Creek Dispersion Area,

and we had horseback team of searchers

actually walking through the creek

because they could get a better viewpoint.

They saw what they believed to be a human

under a blanket near a makeshift campsite.

♪♪

It was likely to be Gabby.

♪♪

I immediately got in my car and headed to Jackson

and found a private room to talk with her stepdad,

Jim Schmidt, who was in Jackson, Wyoming at the time,

waiting for any possible news

that we could provide him.

I had pictures of clothing and some personal identifying marks,

tattoos, from the person that was recovered,

and Jim was able to validate that that was Gabby Petito.

♪♪

There was an aspect of dad delivering news to dad

that made this a little more difficult than usual.

First and foremost, I would like to extend sere --

sincere and heartfelt condol-- condolences to Gabby's family.

Earlier today, human remains were discovered

consistent with the description of Gabrielle "Gabby" Petito.

♪♪

At the end of that day, I went back

and I called my own family.

I called my two boys that were about the same age at that time,

and then I went on -- on a long run.

♪♪

-We will never know how Joe Petito

processed that news personally.

Publicly, he put out

a social-media post with angel wings

that clearly showed that he knew she was with the angels.

♪♪

-I got a message from some news station

that said that they had found a body.

And I remember I...

♪♪

I felt pain I'd never felt before.

And...

I don't know. I ended up on the floor somehow,

and I was just screaming

and...yelling and...mad.

I was so mad.

And it took me time to then be grateful

because they found her,

and my biggest fear was never finding her.

♪♪

-On the day that her body was found,

it really stoked my hatred for Brian Laundrie.

He left that hand, that ring,

that person in the wilderness for animals to eat.

♪♪

-My podcast co-host and I immediately got on the phone

because we just couldn't stop crying,

and we couldn't --

We just didn't have any words.

-When Gabby's body was found,

what was determined from her autopsy

was that she was strangled.

It's how most men kill women,

and it's the ultimate power and control move.

And it silences the victim forever.

♪♪

-Nobody will ever know exactly what happened

during this trip to Wyoming.

The investigation revealed that her laptop

was last used on August 27th.

It basically timed out around 11:30 p.m.

♪♪

-I think he decided that

if she wasn't going to be with him,

that she didn't get to exist, and he strangled her to death.

She died in pain, and she died afraid.

♪♪

-If this were anything like an accident,

the first thing that you would do

is call for help and assistance,

but that's not what he chose to do.

-One of the first things that Brian Laundrie does

is call his parents.

And his parents immediately retained a lawyer.

-He intended to kill her. He intended to control her.

He intended to silence her.

He was a clear actor in that.

And what's more, he tried to cover it up.

♪♪

-On the evening of the 27th,

Brian departs the Spread Creek area.

Brian's phone begins to ping in another area of the park

on a different tower.

Gabby's phone did not leave the van.

And then Brian's phone was actually turned off

for about a 12-hour period.

♪♪

-Brian wandered around, trying to create an alibi for himself.

He was trying to create evidence that he and Gabby

had basically had some kind of argument

and that he had gone off hiking on his own.

He hiked 27 miles.

-Brian traveled towards Colter Bay.

We were able to use cellular data

to corroborate that.

When he arrives, he actually makes himself known

to park rangers and employees

that he was engaged to Gabby Petito.

♪♪

From Colter Bay, he hitchhiked back to the van.

-The next time Brian was seen in public,

it's by Miranda Baker,

and Miranda created a TikTok post

about her encounter with Brian

once she figured out who Brian was,

and that really helped the investigators

to piece together Brian's movements

after Gabby was killed.

-We picked him up at Colter Bay at 5:30.

He approached us, asking us for a ride

'cause he needed to go to Jackson,

which we were going to Jackson that night.

He hopped in the back of my Jeep.

He then told us he's been camping for multiple days

without his fiancé.

-The logical reason for Brian to even return to the scene

would be to get the van so that he could go home.

♪♪

-Brian hops in Gabby's van

and starts driving back to Florida without Gabby,

using her phone and his phone

to send text messages back and forth

to try and solidify this alibi.

-In the pretend conversation between himself and Gabby,

she became the aggressor.

Brian's side of the the texting was, you know, "I love you.

I want you back in my life. I want things to work out."

Gabby's side was, "You're a jerk.

I want you to die."

We weren't buying it.

♪♪

We also learned that Gabby's account had $1,000 transfer

from her account into Brian's account,

and were able to determine that that transaction occurred

when she couldn't have possibly been alive,

thus making it a crime for Brian

to have transferred that money without her authority.

What that did for us is allow us to get warrants

and use additional tools and techniques

to be able to locate and hopefully apprehend Brian.

-The hunt for Brian Laundrie isn't slowing down.

Crews went back out to the Carlton Reserve Wednesday,

an area 75% underwater.

North Port Police and other law-enforcement agencies

are now using boats, dive teams, and sonar equipment

to move the search forward.

-Law enforcement searched the Carlton Reserve for weeks,

spending literally millions of dollars.

♪♪

-We went up in the helicopter just to get an idea

of what the search looked like from the air,

because a lot of it was on airboats and horseback,

things that we couldn't really see from the roadway.

When you look around from up here in the helicopter,

you can tell just how massive it is.

Brian Laundrie could be anywhere out here,

if he even is out here.

-People wanted him to be found

so that he would have to pay for what he did.

-Brian's own sister, Cassie,

went on "Good Morning America" on October 5th

and begged for her brother to come clean.

-No, I do not know where Brian is.

I'd turn him in.

I don't know if my parents are involved.

I think, if they are, then they should come clean.

♪♪

-After about five weeks, law enforcement had to say,

"It's time we move on."

They ended up opening up the park for the public

to use again for the first time in weeks.

The next day, Chris and Roberta Laundrie

were accompanied by a federal agent

and a local officer as they walked the Carlton Reserve

to look for themselves.

-Chris and Roberta know their son,

and they know the places that he liked to go out there,

and they'd been out there with him before.

-It was about, as I recall,

around a 40-, 45-minute hike into the Carlton Reserve,

and there it was --

the remnants of Brian Laundrie.

♪♪

-On October 20th,

it becomes official when investigators in Florida

announced that they have found the remains of Brian Laundrie

in the Carlton Reserve.

-Earlier today,

investigators found what appears to be human remains,

along with personal items belonging to Brian Laundrie.

♪♪

-I was really invested in Brian's capture.

He represented an opportunity for catharsis and revenge.

Finally, we were going to see him brought to trial.

But that never happened because he had gotten away with it.

♪♪

-He never had to admit to it.

He never had to face Gabby's parents

and, you know, look them in the eye

after taking their daughter's life.

And, you know, I think a lot of people on social media

felt that frustration, especially for Gabby's family.

-If your son is a person of interest

in your future daughter-in-law's disappearance,

and you see them with a hiking backpack

and you think they may be heading into the woods,

I don't know, isn't it just kind of maybe a good idea to be like,

"Hey, what are you doing?"

-The Internet would later sort of credit itself

with contributing in a positive way to Gabby's case.

I actually feel the opposite.

I think that the the Internet robbed her family of justice

because when commenters started flooding

his social media feeds, demanding, you know,

that he turn himself in and stuff,

that it started to dawn on him,

that maybe it wasn't going to be so easy.

-Brian Laundrie died by suicide,

specifically, a gunshot wound to the head.

And there are still so many more questions about this case.

-I can only assume that her family

felt very robbed by his suicide.

-There are things about this case and story

that have never made much sense

or that are just very strange, and this is one of those parts.

The Laundries went out in the morning

and stumble upon Brian Laundrie's remains.

-Every investigative bone in my body tells me

that they knew their son had committed suicide.

♪♪

-Alongside Brian's remains in the Carlton Reserve,

they find a backpack,

they find a notebook, and they find a gun.

And contained in that notebook is a confession.

-This was what he wrote in his account.

"Rushing back to our car,

trying to cross the stream of Spread Creek

before it got too dark to see.

Too cold. I hear a splash and a scream.

I could barely see.

I couldn't find her for a moment.

Shouted her name.

I found her breathing heavily, gasping,

and she was freezing cold."

And then he says, "I don't know the extent of Gabby's injuries,

only that she was in extreme pain.

I ended her life. I thought it was merciful

that it is what she wanted."

And if this were this, you know, merciful killing,

which is a fantastical thing to say,

why would you leave your loved one there?

And he lied, and he lied again.

♪♪

-Ultimately, the confession that Brian wrote out

is just a rambling pile of garbage.

He won't admit to murdering her.

He's only admitting to a mercy killing.

What a prince.

♪♪

-Brian Laundrie's confession letter was released online.

-The whole story is likely fabricated.

-People are calling B.S. on this confession altogether.

-I think it frustrated everybody online

who wanted justice for her

because he really didn't tell the truth.

He didn't confess.

-He continues, "I see now all the mistakes I made.

I panicked, I was in shock,

but from the moment I decided, took away her pain,

I knew I couldn't go on without her.

Gabby, we lost our future. I can't live without you."

A lot of Brian's behaviors,

they're characteristics of psychopathy.

The fact that he took no responsibility

for his own behavior, the fact that he lied

so many times on the police stop,

he showed no remorse, never saw any remorse

or empathy towards Gabby.

He strangled her.

That was his ultimate way of controlling her.

♪♪

-Some really explosive allegations

about who knew what and when.

-For the first time,

the Petitos came face to face with the Laundries.

-Christopher Laundrie disclosed Brian disclosed to him

that Gabby was gone and that he needed a lawyer.

[ Crowd chanting "Where is Gabby?" ]

-The Petitos decided, absent justice

that could be meted out against Brian,

they would file a lawsuit against his parents,

the Laundries.

-There are still many questions that the Petito family has

about what the Laundrie family knew.

-In 2022, the Petito family filed a civil lawsuit

against Chris and Roberta Laundrie

for emotional distress.

♪♪

They claim that the Laundries hid the fact

that Brian had killed their daughter.

-This lawsuit from Gabby's parents,

they claim that the Laundries knew that Brian killed Gabby,

and they are seeking damages for intentional infliction

and emotional distress.

♪♪

-For the first time since their daughter had disappeared,

the Petitos came face to face with the Laundries.

To be a fly on the wall at that deposition,

I'll bet you could have heard a pin drop.

-And then this bombshell -- it comes out in the deposition

that Brian Laundrie called his parents

almost two weeks before Gabby Petito

was reported missing, that she's gone.

And he reportedly called his family 20 times.

♪♪

I think everybody was just shocked to hear this.

Joining us now to lay it all out is Patrick Reilly.

He is the attorney for the Petito family.

-Well, good evening, Brian.

During that deposition, for the first time,

Christopher Laundrie disclosed that, on August 29th of 2021,

he received what he called a frantic telephone call

from Brian, in which Brian disclosed to him

that Gabby was gone, uh, and that he needed a lawyer.

So that just confirmed what we had suspected

going back almost two years.

-You get a call from your son August 29th, saying,

"Gabby's gone, and I need a lawyer,"

and they keep this quiet for weeks and weeks?

It's really beyond the pale.

♪♪

-The Petitos have told me directly

that they do not want to settle.

They want to go to trial with the Laundries.

They feel like this is their sort of one shot

at justice for their daughter.

♪♪

-I call murders like Gabby's a murder in slow motion

because it happens over time.

There are a thousand things that went on prior

to Brian's strangling Gabby and killing her.

♪♪

A thousand cuts, as we say.

It's the murder, psychologically,

of the spirit and the soul, too, not just physically.

-The fact that it didn't fit

that stereotypical portrait of abuse

made it harder to recognize it for what it was.

-Well, he, like, grabbed my face,

and he was, like -- like this.

-I think it's on us as a society

for not framing certain elements of coercive control as violence,

whether or not it ends in bloodshed.

-Think what's so tragic about Gabby's story is that,

sure, it's a cautionary tale if we know all the signs.

But not everyone knew all the signs.

And I think Gabby Petito said a lot about her life

and was very open and -- and was willing to share,

but was not willing to share that part.

♪♪

-The Gabby Petito story changed my life and my career.

We started a "missing" series at NewsNation

where we highlight missing people every week.

I've become passionate about domestic-violence awareness

and covering those stories, also.

-Gabby's dad, Joseph Petito,

he's really working hard to make sure

that Gabby's legacy lives on.

The Gabby Petito Foundation has not only done a lot

to help victims of domestic violence

but have also helped so many missing persons.

And there wasn't justice,

but Gabby's legacy can live on.

♪♪

-Every day, there's something that reminds me about her.

♪♪

Butterflies make me think about Gabby a lot.

But I want Gabby to be remembered for who she was,

that person that just radiates light,

that loved nature and loved to be adventurous.

I want people to know there are people in her life

that miss her every day.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪