The first time I knew something was truly wrong was when she sent me the photo. There was blood on her face. Gabby was crying on the phone. She said she and Brian had gotten into an argument.
As a mother, I lost it. I demanded to know where she was. I called the police in Utah myself, but they told me someone had already called 911. A witness had seen a man slap a woman outside a white van.
By the time officers pulled them over, Gabby was the one apologizing, taking the blame for everything. She told me it was just a rough morning. She said she was the problem. I suggested she end the trip, but she wouldn’t hear it.
We were led to believe everything was fine. Gabby had always been like this—full of light, loud, always the presence in the room. She came into this world with a fire in her. Artistic from the moment she could hold a pencil.
Photography, drawing, traveling. She wanted to see everything, do everything. She was fearless. She was about a year and a half old when I first met her.
She was just a bowl full of fun, the only child of Nicole and Joe. They split when she was six months old, but all four parents stayed in her life. She grew up in Blue Point, a small, close-knit town. Brian was just the weird friend in high school.
They graduated a year apart and didn’t start dating until 2019. They ran into each other, started hanging out, and then took a road trip across the country in her car. When they came back, they were together. I remember thinking you can’t spend that much time with someone and not fall for them.
He was interesting. Artistic. He seemed good for her. When they decided to move to Florida to be closer to his family, I saw a shift in Gabby.
It was the perfect storm of isolation. We were in New York, she was in Tampa, and we weren’t seeing the day-to-day. She got along with Brian’s parents, but his mother, Roberta, seemed jealous of the time Brian spent with Gabby. Why would you be jealous of your son’s girlfriend?
Gabby stopped talking to most of her old friends. She was living a completely different life down there. She met a friend named Rose on Bumble because neither of them had many friends. Brian didn’t want Gabby having friends.
When they went to the beach, Brian would sit in a hammock, watching them, clearly unhappy she was spending time with anyone but him. Despite all that, Gabby documented a picture-perfect relationship online. Six months after the move, she announced their engagement. Brian didn’t ask her dads for permission.
He didn’t even have a ring. He just asked her while they were camping. I found out through a Facebook post. I called her and asked if she was sure.
She seemed happy. She said she was. We visited her in Florida for Easter in 2021. She looked very happy.
She stayed in the hotel with us, spent time with her brothers. But Brian wasn’t there. His family never invited us over. Not once.
I found that strange. Not long after, we moved down to Florida ourselves to be closer to her. Looking back, I notice how her attitude changed. She became aggressive, confused, angry.
She cried a lot. She would call me crying. I thought she was lonely, stuck in Florida during COVID. I told her she could come home anytime.
Then she met Rose and started loving it down there. Then she decided to buy a van. Her plan was to convert it with Brian and travel cross-country, making money as travel influencers. She wanted to show people the national parks, the beautiful places.
Brian wasn’t in love with the idea of filming their whole trip, but he went along because it meant a lot to her. I asked how they were going to pay for it. She said they had a plan. It happened faster than she said it would.
The van came quickly, got done quickly, and suddenly they were leaving. She planned to come up to New York for her brother’s graduation, then take off. In the driveway, she hugged me and cried so hard. I asked her why she was crying.
She said she didn’t know. I thought she was excited and nervous. Now I know she was scared. She was probably scared of being alone with him for that long.
It makes me so angry that we didn’t see the signs. They launched their YouTube channel, Nomadic Static. Gabby wanted it to be her full-time job. She spoke to me a few times a week, texted almost daily.
She liked showing me where she was. On August 12th, I got that phone call. She was crying, said they had an argument. Then she sent me the photo with blood on her face.
I flipped out as a mother. I called the police department there, but someone had already called 911. The police pulled them over in Moab, Utah. Gabby told me afterward it was just a bad day.
She was stressed. She was the problem. I told her maybe they should end the trip. Something felt off, but she didn’t open up.
On August 26th, Gabby posted her last photo on Instagram. Then she went quiet. The next day, Nicole received some odd text messages from Gabby’s phone. One said to tell Stan to stop calling them.
Stan was Gabby’s grandfather. She never called him by his first name. On September 8th, Nicole called me. She hadn’t heard from Gabby in almost a week.
I hadn’t either. We tried calling. No answer. We texted Brian, his parents, his sister.
Nothing. Gabby deleted me from Facebook. They were ignoring us. I panicked.
I had nightmares. I called parks, police departments, everywhere. They all said they couldn’t report her missing. Florida said they couldn’t.
I didn’t know what to do. On September 11th, I went to the police station in New York. A female detective finally took the report. She called Northport, Florida, and asked them to go to Brian’s parents’ house.
That night, around 11:30, the detective showed up on my doorstep. She said Brian had come home on September 1st with the van. Gabby was not with him. I dropped to my knees.
I asked where my daughter was. She said she didn’t know. I could see in her eyes she knew something was very wrong. I sat down at my computer and blasted Gabby’s face across Facebook.
Within 24 hours, the FBI was calling me. She was all over Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Within a day or two, it was worldwide. Internet sleuths, true crime fans, podcasters—everyone was hunting for Gabby.
#FindGabby was everywhere. Her case was unique because she was so visible on social media until she just vanished. People couldn’t understand how that happened. Every day that passed, more people around the world were watching.
That put pressure on law enforcement. Jim couldn’t stay in New York. He went to Wyoming. I went through Gabby’s hiking and camping apps feverishly.
For some reason, I kept saying she’s in Wyoming. I had a feeling. I asked to meet with the sheriff’s department there. I went to a ranger station, got a map, and asked about the area.
She described Spread Creek campground. I circled it. I told them, if I know Gabby, this is where she would camp. They exchanged glances across the table.
Unbeknownst to me, they were already looking in that area. On September 16th, the body cam footage of Gabby and Brian’s encounter with Moab police was released. It went viral. I saw it with the rest of the world.
That day was much worse than she had told me. In the video, Gabby is apologizing repeatedly, crying, disregulated. Brian is calm. He throws her under the bus immediately.
He says she got worked up, that he had to distance himself, that she was swinging at him. There were scratches on both of them, but the officers decided Gabby was the primary aggressor. They talked about charging her. She told an officer Brian put his hand around her face and neck.
The officer listened, then changed the subject. He never asked to examine her face. If they’d been trained, they would have asked about strangulation. They would have known that increases the risk of homicide sevenfold.
They decided not to charge Gabby. Instead, they separated the couple. Gabby was given the keys to the van. Brian was taken to a hotel for victims of domestic assault, free of charge.
I watched that video and wanted to jump through the screen. I couldn’t believe so many supposed trained adults failed her that day. On September 17th, Brian’s parents reported him missing, claiming he left for a hike three days earlier. A full-scale search began at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Florida.
Police analyzed the couple’s phone usage. On August 28th, Brian had both phones. He sent Gabby messages saying he made it to Coulter Bay, that he couldn’t wait for her to see the mountains. But he was actually somewhere else in the park.
When he got back to the van, her phone started responding to his. On Brian’s way home, he sent himself $700 from Gabby’s Zelle account. The memo read, “Goodbye, Brian. I’ll never ask you for anything again.
”
There were tips coming in every minute. One person picked Brian up while hitchhiking. He panicked and demanded to be let out. Another couple’s YouTube video captured the white van in the background.
Then on September 19th, the FBI found remains consistent with Gabby in Grand Teton National Park. Jim identified her from a photograph of what she was wearing. The worst part was telling my kids. The autopsy revealed she was most likely murdered around August 28th.
Cause of death: blunt force trauma and manual strangulation. I believe Brian snapped. He had flown back to Tampa for a short time while Gabby stayed in a hotel. She had been communicating with an ex-boyfriend, looking for advice because she was having difficulty in her relationship.
She was lonely. She was scared. I believe she wanted to go home. Brian was so controlling and jealous.
I believe he found out. On September 20th, the FBI searched the Laundry home. They found a letter from Brian’s mother, Roberta. It effectively said it didn’t matter what he did—she’d help him with garbage bags and a spade to hide a body.
She’d always love him no matter what. Do I believe the family knew? I find it highly suspicious if they didn’t. Brian became a federal fugitive wanted for homicide.
A nationwide manhunt unfolded. Everyone thought he had escaped Florida. But law enforcement kept searching Myakkahatchee. Then Chris and Roberta went to check some spots Brian liked to visit.
Against all odds, they found his remains. He had died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. His body was badly decomposed. They used dental records to confirm it.
They also found a notebook where he admitted he killed Gabby and could no longer go on living. He said he just couldn’t live without her. There was no real justice. People were angry.
They didn’t want to believe it. Brian never faced a trial. But we were able to bring Gabby home. We say it all the time—it could have been worse.
We could not have brought her home. I don’t think things would have moved as quickly without that Facebook post. If I hadn’t blasted it out that night, I don’t think we would have found her. We started the Gabby Petito Foundation to honor her legacy and to prevent this from happening to other families.
We focus on education, awareness, prevention, and legislation. I took strangulation training. I took domestic violence 101. Tara and Nikki travel the country speaking.
Jim trains first responders. I do legislative work. We fight to get laws changed so police must use the lethality assessment—an 11-question protocol after a domestic violence call. It helps determine if someone is in a lethal situation and connects them with advocates.
Most people don’t even know where to go when they’re in an abusive situation. People contact us frequently to say they or their loved one is safe because of Gabby’s story. That gives us so much hope. I believe if the police had been trained better that day, if they had connected Gabby to an advocate, she would be here today.
I hope Gabby’s proud. I know she is. She gives us signs when we need them most—feathers, numbers, rainbows, butterflies. She lets us know she’s there and to keep going.
Eventually, I’ll see her again. I’m going to ask her if I made her proud. That’s why I do this work. She was always smiling, always happy, full of life.
She was fearless and adventurous, doing things most adults only hope to do when they retire. She was doing it young and able. I just think that serves as inspiration to others—don’t wait. Live in the moment.
Be happy. Live your life to the fullest.
