Brian Laundrie's family responds to Netflix's new Gabby Petito documentary, and other key takeaways

A lawyer for the parents of Brian Laundrie, who died by suicide after killing his 22-year-old fiancée, Gabby Petito, in 2021, issued a statement this week in response to Netflix’s new documentary series about the high-profile murder, saying that the series contained “many inaccuracies, incorrect juxtapositions of timelines and misstatements and omissions of fact.”

“We all know Brian took Gabby’s life and Brian then took his own as well,” attorney Steven P. Bertolino said in a statement to TMZ. “Let the parents of both Gabby and Brian mourn and remember them in peace.”

Laundrie’s family declined to participate in the making of American Murder: Gabby Petito, which aired on Netflix on Feb. 17 and tries to paint a more complete picture of what the young couple's relationship was like in the final days of Petito's life.

Petito went missing in September 2021 after traveling for two months with Laundrie. Her family became concerned when she stopped texting them and then learned that Laundrie had taken the couple's shared van back to his parents’ house in Florida, alone. Petito’s body was found in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19; one month later, Laundrie, who had disappeared from his parents’ house, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Florida. Along with his remains, law enforcement reportedly found a notebook containing a note from Laundrie in which he wrote that he was responsible for Petito’s death.

The case went viral. As the documentary notes, a YouTube video Petito posted while traveling with Laundrie skyrocketed from a few hundred views to over 7 million, once her disappearance hit the headlines.

Using unseen text messages, journal entries and police body camera footage, as well as interviews with Petito’s family and close friends, the directors of the documentary, Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro, told Yahoo News that the goal of the three-episode series is to help viewers — even those who closely followed the case in 2021 — to get a better understanding of the apparently abusive relationship Petito was in.

“We hope through seeing her words and her voice that it can humanize the situation and not make it too lofty or heady, but relatable,” Nason said. “So many people — both men and women — can find themselves in a dynamic that they can’t predict but it’s very hard to remove themselves from.”

Petito’s family and friends cooperated, but Laundrie’s did not

Nason and Gasparro told Yahoo News that in addition to sitting for multiple interviews, Petito’s parents handed over Petito’s phone, her diaries and her computer to help “tell [the story] through Gabby.”

“They were very willing and cooperative and collaborative with us in terms of materials that they shared — this personal archive of Gabby’s,” Nason said. “They were eager to keep Gabby’s story alive.”

Petito’s family even allowed the film crew to come with them to visit the spot where Petito’s body was found, a year after she went missing.

The documentary also features interviews with a friend of Petito’s who observed her troubling interactions with Laundrie in Florida before they set off on their van trip, as well as the first-ever interview with Petito’s ex-boyfriend, who is identified only by his first name, Jackson.

In the second episode, Jackson reveals that Petito reached out to him during her van trip with Laundrie, and that the two caught up on a phone call.

“I got the vibe that she may have still needed somebody to talk to after we hung up,” Jackson says in the documentary, adding he that reassured Petito in a follow-up text that she could call him whenever she needed to. “She kind of hinted at the fact that they had kind of gotten in an argument a little bit. She was like, ‘I have a plan. I think I want to leave him.’”

Jackson says he and Petito continued to exchange messages every day until Aug. 27, when he says he missed a call from her while he was at work. That was the last time he heard from her.

“It was the communication with Jackson that was the most, I think, interesting aspect of it,” Nason said. “There was obviously something that was going on there — the fact that she felt that she had to reach out to somebody that she trusted to share something and to reach out in a place of desperation and fear. And she reached out to this person to touch base and be like, ‘I’m not OK.’”

Nason and Gasparro told Yahoo News that they reached out to all members of the Laundrie family to participate in the documentary, but they declined.

Laundrie’s sister, Cassie, responded to the docuseries in an Instagram post disputing Suffolk County detective Tracey Barry’s account of a conversation she had with Cassie after Gabby’s disappearance. In the documentary, Barry describes a phone call she had with Cassie in 2021, in which she says that Cassie told her Brian came home to Florida after getting in a fight with Gabby and leaving her at a hotel.

“No one from any family contacted me until detective Barry called me,” Cassie wrote on Instagram. “Det. Barry gravely miscommunicated what I told her in the phone.”

Cassie did not elaborate on what she recalls telling Barry in that phone call. She also noted in the caption of her Instagram post that she has not been in contact with her parents for almost two years.

In his statement issued on behalf of Laundrie’s parents, Chris and Roberta, Bertolino suggested that the series only presents a version of what happened, or “one perspective depicted as the 'truth' as seen through their lens,” adding that “each side believes their perspective is correct.”

“To be clear though,” Bertolino continued. “There were no contradictions by my clients Chris and Roberta Laundrie.”

Never-before-seen text messages, journal entries and police body camera footage

On Aug. 12, 2021, police were called on the couple after they were spotted in a physical fight in Moab, Utah. While clips of the police body camera footage from the altercation were widely circulated at the time, the entire confrontation is shown in full for the first time in this docuseries.

The series also features body camera footage of an entire conversation between Florida police and Laundrie's parents after the van was discovered at their house following Petito’s disappearance, some clips of which were made public in late 2024.

Text messages obtained from Petito’s phone, showing conversations between her and Laundrie, her parents, her friend Rose Davis and her ex-boyfriend, Jackson, offer new insight into Petito’s relationship and her mindset in the days leading up to her death. The directors also used photos and videos taken by Petito on the trip, as well as drawings and journal entries that helped to paint a fuller picture of the dynamic between Petito and Laundrie — which often conflicted with the harmonious relationship Petito presented on her social media feeds.

“She documented everything,” Gasparro said.

Directors bring Petito’s voice to life with artificial intelligence

The directors also obtained permission from Petito’s parents to use audio from existing videos to AI-generate a voiceover of Petito “reading” one of her journal entries out loud.

“We spoke to the family and said, ‘Listen, it’s really important for us to tell these kinds of stories, and we have an opportunity to tell it through Gabby and let her voice the story, which is unique,’” Gasparro said. “We told them we were thinking about doing [AI] and we got the go-ahead. So you’re hearing — a lot of that stuff is her written journals that we brought to life, basically.”

Gasparro said that because Petito was an aspiring influencer who had already put so much of herself out there for the public before her death, it seemed to make sense to use her own voice to connect with viewers.

“We felt that, because this was directly correlated to her writings and that we wanted her voice to be her words to take us through moments, then this would be the best way to do it,” Gasparro said.

Even though Petito’s parents gave the directors permission to recreate Petito’s voice, Nicole Schmidt, Petito’s mom, said hearing the AI voiceover was “weird.”

“We know her actual voice, [it] is a little off,” Schmidt told The Independent. “It’s just hard to hear.”

“AI or her real voice, I still get upset hearing it knowing she’s gone,” Petito’s stepfather, Jim Schmidt, added.

A message of warning and support

Ultimately, the docuseries offers few new revelations about Petito’s murder, the details of which were heavily documented at the time. Rather, the directors say that their goal was to offer a more realistic look at the apparently toxic relationship that was unfolding between Laundrie and Petito behind the scenes of her picture-perfect Instagram feed and to raise awareness for others who might be in similar relationships.

“It’s a very powerful, toxic drug essentially when you’re in a relationship where you’re isolated and certain terms and pathologies get thrown out there,” Nason said. “We really hope people can be in her shoes and not feel so alone."