It’s been three and a half years since Gabby Petito made headlines around the world after she vanished during a cross-country road trip she was taking with her finance Brian Laundrie. Now, a new three-part docuseries, “American Murder: Gabby Petito,” goes beyond the headlines to reveal the reality of a 22-year-old woman enmeshed in an abusive relationship.
After Petito disappeared in August 2021, Laundrie returned to his parents’ house in North Port, Fla., where he refused to discuss Petito’s whereabouts. Laundrie’s refusal to speak to the police caused a media firestorm, which escalated when Petito’s body was found in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest on Sept. 19, 2021. An autopsy concluded that Petito died by homicide. Laundrie, who was eventually revealed to be the killer, died by suicide in October 2021.
The series, directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro, features Peitito’s family and several of her close friends. Never-before-seen text messages, police body cam footage, and excerpts from Petito’s personal journal are also used to tell Petito’s story. Notably, the doc uses outtakes from Petito’s #Vanlife Vlog, which reveal that her happy, “Insta-perfect” face for social media was, especially in the last few weeks of her life, a facade.
The docuseries marks the third installment of Netflix’s “American Murder” franchise. “American Murder: The Family Next Door” streamed in 2020 and was followed by 2024’s “American Murder: Laci Peterson.”
Variety spoke to Willoughby Nason and Gasparro about accessing police body cam footage, Brian Laundrie’s parents, and what surprised them about the Petito case.
In the series, Gabby’s biological parents, as well as both of her stepparents, are very candid about their daughter and her murder, which seemed painful to recount. How did you convince the family to participate? Were they paid?
Gasparro: No. This was all about The Gabby Petito Foundation. Netflix doesn’t do a lot of action items, or cards (listing foundations) or anything like that because it’s a documentary. But we were able to get a clip into episode three where the family was able to talk about the foundation. So, the whole goal here is to push people towards The Gabby Petito Foundation, which helps bring awareness to domestic violence.
Did you find it difficult to ask to do those interviews since you were asking people to recount the worst weeks of their lives?
Willoughby Nason: We do very long interviews. So, we had time with the family to unpack things, to take breaks, and to slow down. Having done these kinds of interviews over the years with families who have lost loved ones, I see how hard it is for them to relive and tell these stories, but I think it’s also very healing and cathartic to be able to speak about what they are feeling on a daily basis because it doesn’t go away unfortunately for them.
Did the family provide you with all the unseen footage from Gabby’s #Vanlife Vlog?
Gasparro: Yes. When we met with her parents, they gave us all this stuff to go through, which included all of Gabby’s journals, all of her artwork, and then all the footage. Her curated #Vanlife footage proves what a great editor she was. She knew what she was doing, and she was very determined. But the (outtakes) allow you to unpack her journey, and that, to us, was amazing. It was really just a way to help tell the story through her.
In the series, it’s revealed that Gabby called an ex-boyfriend in the days leading up to her disappearance and on the day detectives think she was murdered. Did that surprise you?
Gasparro: Yes. We didn’t know about that. We didn’t know she had reached out to him during a vulnerable time (during her trip with Brian). She was obviously suffering. She trusted her ex and reached out. It was like a cry for help. We think that’s probably something that Brian caught wind of.
When Petito went missing, a snippet of the police bodycam footage captured on Aug. 12, 2021 in Moab, Utah of Gabby and Brian circulated in newsfeeds around the country. In your series, you reveal the entirety of the bodycam footage for the first time. How did you get all of that unseen footage?
Gasparro: Through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.
The footage is pretty infuriating. Did you ask the Moab police who were involved with the incident for an interview?
Gasparro: Yes, but they declined.
I’m assuming you also asked Brian’s parents – Christopher and Roberta Laundrie – for an interview?
Gasparro: Yes. They also declined. We had to respect that. You can only do so much, and we are not a news organization. We are not going to stand on their lawn and beg them to be on the series. For us, it was about telling Gabby’s story first and foremost. People tend to love to tell the story about the murderer, but we felt Gabby’s story was more important.
After this process, do you think Brian’s family knew that he murdered Gabby long before his confession letter was found?
Willoughby Nason: Based on the phone records that we highlight in the series, we know that Brian called his parents for almost an hour from Wyoming around the time Gabby went missing. I think to us, that really tips the hat that something was communicated there early on between his family. We don’t know what, but we do know that he told his dad, ‘Gabby’s gone, and I need a lawyer.’ We see in the phone records that the parents contacted a lawyer in Wyoming right after Brian’s call to them. So, it’s suspicious.
Were there any interesting things that you learned while making the film that you couldn’t fit into the series?
Willoughby Nason: I learned that Gabby was a prolific artist and that she was very industrious in terms of wanting to be an influencer and how to build this van. All of this was her idea.
Gasparro: There was an entire cross-country trip that they took prior to moving to Florida that we didn’t know about, but we had to move things along for the viewer.
Dr. Phil served as an executive producer on this series. How did that happen?
Gasparro: Sarah Carden (“Dr. Phil” senior supervising news producer) reached out to us and said that she loved “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” which we made for Netflix in 2023. She told us that the (Petito) family, who had a relationship with Dr. Phil, wanted to tell their story because they hadn’t actually sat down or partnered with anybody to tell Gabby’s story. They had done sit-down interviews while everything was unpacking, but Sarah said that they wanted filmmakers like us to tell Gabby’s story.
“American Murder: Gabby Petito” is now streaming on Netflix.
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