When 22-year-old student and travel fanatic Gabby Petito told her parents of her plans to go backpacking with her fiancee Brian Laundrie last summer there seemed to be no obvious alarm bells ringing.
After all she had ventured across various US hiking hotspots, both alone and accompanied by Laundrie, and was more than experienced in cross-country travel.
However, just three months after the pair departed for the open road, human remains matching the description of Miss Petito were found by authorities in Wyoming. She had been reported missing by her mother in August when Laundrie returned without his wife-to-be.
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But what exactly had happened to the promising youngster on her trip? Ahead of Channel 5's documentary Gabby Petito: The Murder That Gripped The World, which airs on Tuesday at 9pm, we investigated the timeline of what became one of the most widely-publicised murder cases in US history and beyond.
June and July 2021
Gabby Petito and her fiancee, Brian Laundrie, who had met during high school in 2017, had planned a trip from their home in New York to the West Coast, specifically to California, in order to visit the numerous popular state and national parks across that region of America. The pair had been dating officially since 2019 and in 2020, the same year that she became engaged to Laundrie, she purchased a white Ford Transit van which they later turned into a camper van to drive from coast to coast.
North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison, who had been involved with the investigation into Miss Petito's death, explained that she had been excited to share their travelling trip across her various social media platforms, adding: "She maintained regular contact with her family members during her travels. However that communication abruptly stopped around the end of August."
Throughout the following two months after they departed for the West Coast the seemingly-happy couple visited popular landmarks and destinations such as Kansas' Monument Rocks, Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, and Utah's Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Mystic Hot Springs, and Canyonlands National Park.
August 2021
While travelling across Utah police were forced to get involved in an altercation between the couple. On August 12 the two were described as getting into a physical fight after an argument. According to CNN, a report from police officer Eric Pratt stated: "Both the male and female reported they are in love and engaged to be married and desperately didn't wish to see anyone charged with a crime."
The officer then suggested that the couple, who each had their own phones in the case of an emergency, reside separately for the evening, allegedly leaving Petito "confused and emotional" despite filing no charges. The report of the incident, written by officer Daniel Robbins, also stated: "After evaluating the totality of the circumstances I do not believe the situation escalated to the level of a domestic assault as much as that of a mental health crisis." The entire interaction between Miss Petito, Laundrie, and the Moab City Police was caught on a bodycam worn by one of the officers.
She can be heard telling police: "I was apologising to him and saying: 'I'm sorry that I'm so mean,' because sometimes I have OCD and sometimes I can get really frustrated.
"And I was just saying I'm sorry if I'm in a bad mood. I just ... I had so much work I was doing on my computer this morning. ... And, I just now quit my job to travel across the country and I'm trying to start a blog. I have a blog. So I've been building my website. I've been really stressed and he doesn't really believe that I could do any of it so we've just been fighting all morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before."
Upon first being questioned Miss Petito seemed to downplay the physical altercation but once an officer had pointed out the numerous marks she exhibited on her arm and face she told them that her fiancee "kept telling me to shut up" and "grabbed my face" which had caused an injury.
A 911 call made on the same day recorded a caller telling the dispatcher that a "gentleman" they'd seen by the roadside "was slapping the girl".
"Then we stopped," the audio added. "They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car, and they drove off."
August 17 saw Laundrie fly to Tampa, Florida, from Salt Lake City, reportedly to "obtain some items and empty and close the storage unit to save money as they contemplated extending the road trip", according to his family attorney Steven Bertolino.
Six days later Miss Petito's fiancee returned to Salt Lake City to rejoin her. Her mother said that she last spoke to her daughter on August 25 and she had told them that she and Laundrie were set to travel from Utah to Grand Teton to visit Yellowstone National Park. The same day Miss Petito posted her final photo to her Instagram account – an image of herself taken in front of a butterfly mural outside a restaurant in Utah.
Eyewitness accounts of the couple thereafter include a Louisiana couple on holiday reporting they had seen the pair involved in a "commotion" on August 27 as they exited a Mexican restaurant. Petito was allegedly in floods of tears with Laundrie being visibly angry and exhibiting aggression towards staff. The same day a text from Miss Petito's phone to her mother reading: "Can you help Stan? I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls" concerned her as she never referred to her grandfather by his first name. Another text received three days later which read, "No service in Yosemite" caused her mother to feel uncertain about who might have been using Miss Petito's phone.
September 2021
Laundrie returned home to his parents' Florida home in the Ford Transit without his fiancee on September 1 and the family went camping together five days later.
On September 11, having not been able to get in touch with her daughter since August, Miss Petito's mother filed a missing persons report to police in Suffolk County, New York. Four days later Laundrie was deemed a 'person of interest' with his parents hiring a lawyer based on whose advice Laundrie remained silent, refusing to talk about his missing girlfriend.
In a letter read by the Petito family attorney at a news briefing on September 16 the Petitos begged for Laundrie's family to assist them in finding their daughter. "Please, if you or your family have any decency left, please, tell us where Gabby is located," they pleaded. "Tell us if we are even looking in the right place. All we want is for Gabby to come home. Please help us make that happen."
In the days following the appeal Laundrie's family opened up to police that they had not actually seen their son since September 14. That day Mr Bertolino, the Laundrie family attorney, told CNN: "The whereabouts of Brian Laundrie are currently unknown. The FBI is currently at the Laundrie residence removing property to assist in locating Brian. As of now the FBI is now looking for both Gabby and Brian."
On September 19 human remains discovered in Teton County matching the description of Miss Petito were found in a camping area close to where the Ford Transit was previously observed by witnesses. Once her identity was confirmed an autopsy determined that the manner of death was murder by "blunt-force injuries to the head and neck with manual strangulation", which had occurred between three and four weeks before the body had been found.
On September 23 the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming issued an arrest warrant for Laundrie after it was discovered that he'd used Petito's debit card to obtain around $1,000 between August 30 and September 1.
Less than a month later Laundrie's skeletal remains, identified using forensic dentistry, along with some belongings were discovered in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in a recently-flooded area. It was later determined that he'd died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
January 2022
The FBI revealed that after examining a notebook that had been found beside Laundrie's deceased body and in it he'd admitted to having murdered Miss Petito before deceiving people through text message that she was still alive. He was officially blamed for Miss Petito's death by authorities afterwards.
A special FBI agent FBI then stated, "All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case. The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito."
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