American Murder: Gabby Petito

I have been following Gabby's case since I first heard about it. I was intrigued to watch this documentary to put all the pieces together and watch the clips. This documentary is as fascinating as it is sad. To see such a beautiful vibrant young lady like Gabby have her life snatched away by an insecure cretin is heartbreaking. The fact that the Laundries who knew what was going on were not prosecuted in any way is shocking too. There are so many if only in this story. If you like watching true crime documentaries then this one is definitely worth the watch. It helps build awareness and makes you want to keep your children a little closer.

As Episode 1 of "American Murder: Gabby Petito" (2025 release; 3 episodes ranging 39 to 48 min) opens, it is "August 12, 2021, Moab, Utah", and based on an anonymous tip, Utah police pulls over a van to question a couple. Turns out to be Brian and Gabby, a young couple on a cross-country road trip. When Gabby is questioned outside the van and away from Brian, she crumbles. We then go back to "March 19,1999, Long Island, NY", when Gabby is born, and we get to know her background an upbringing. At this point we are 10 minutes into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: I was vaguely familiar with these events, but to now see it laid out as clearly and as detailed as this documentary mini-series does, only brought a sense of immense sadness and a disgust of the cruelty with which one person murders another, and for what? The mini-series is helped immensely by the fact that so much footage was filmed by Gabby in particular (she was prepping to start a vlog about their cross-country travels). This mini-series also focuses on the role of Brian's parents in all of this. How these people sleep at night, I have no clue.

"American Murder: Gabby Petito" has just started streaming on Netflix. Not sure why this is presented in 3 short episodes, as opposed to a feature-length documentary. I watched this in a single setting, and I suspect I will not be the only one. If you are interested in true crime documentaries, I readily recommend you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

Most of the true crime shows are cases that are from decades ago. This one is from 2021, so it's pretty fresh for this kind of documentary. This is a case I never heard about, so I found it quite interesting.

The production quality is good and there is a lot of original footage shot by the couple that this is about. The producers do throw in some short reenactments, but they work well with the overall flow of the narrative.

If you like true crime, this is definitely worth watching, because it's not an old story where DNA testing hadn't been invented, or some cold case. This is modern times, with a young, attractive couple.

As soon as the police went to Brian's parents' home, the Petito family must have known that something really bad had happened to Gabby. Brian has the van, but claims he flew back to Florida after fighting with Gabby. I wanted to reach into the television and do harm to those two parents. Can they be charged with aiding and abetting Brian? What about Brian having the van? It was registered to Gabby, right?

Brian was a coward right til the end. His behind his parents, wrote a note saying that Gabby was dying, so "he put her out of her misery", then cowardly killed himself.

The video of the Moab police is upsetting to say the least. They seemed to be biased towards Gabby, although she did say that in this altercation, she hit him first. After watching this doc, I read that there was an investigation regarding the handling of the police stop, and that the police should have questioned the 911 caller, and that it could have been a charge of domestic assault (of Brian!) against Gabby. Perhaps if they did arrest her, everything would be different now and she would still be alive? Maybe not. She was so far into this relationship I'm not sure she saw things rationally. I do agree that US laws should include police asking the 11 lethality questions, which is what Gabby's parents are now lobbying. But even this, I'm not sure if Brian would have met the criteria to have police call a domestic violence hotline. Don't know.

Very very sad.

Best documentary to date on this sad story; there have been a few.

The length of the documentary (3 episodes each under an hour long) was the perfect length to cover the story comprehensively, without being redundant.

The criticism of Utah police's handling of the Moab incident is unwarranted. What else were they supposed to do?? These are ADULTS. Do you want Daddy Government making personal decisions for everyone? As if that hasn't gone far enough already. They handled the situation professionally, and did all they could, which was to advise these two to go their seperate ways for the night and cool off. The only alternative would have been to arrest BOTH of them (they both had physical fight marks on them). Most arrests do nothing except create lasting arrest records, which can and do destroy lives. So no, Moab police did nothing wrong.

Brian's parents are human garbage, and I'm truly surprised aiding and abetting charges weren't filed against them. No words.

Solid documentary about a very sad story.