Gabby Petito‘s murder and Brian Laundrie‘s subsequent death were the focus of a new Netflix true crime docuseries — but what didn’t make the final cut?
Filmmakers Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro exclusively spoke to Us Weekly about making American Murder: Gabby Petito, which premiered Monday, February 17. Gasparro noted that movies are “never finished” before Nason elaborated on what ended up on the cutting room floor.
“There was so much amazing material of Gabby’s that we wanted to include,” Nason explained. “But we really also didn’t want to oversaturate the viewer and we wanted to balance it out with the actual scope of the crime and the ins and outs of the investigation, which was astronomical in terms of the feat of the investigators, how national this case was and how was a double missing person case across huge amounts of acres.”
Nason said the priority was creating “balance” between telling Gabby’s story and covering her death, adding, “But we could just do a whole doc that was just Gabby’s journals.”
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Petito and Laundrie’s tumultuous relationship made headlines in 2021 after they went on a cross-country trip, which they documented for her YouTube channel. After they were pulled over in Utah following a report of a man striking a woman, the incident was classified as disorderly conduct and the duo were separated for the night. They reunited, however, and continued their trip until Petito stopped responding to her parents’ text messages.
Petito’s disappearance was the subject of intense nationwide attention after Brian returned home in September 2021 without her. She was found dead at age 22 in September 2021 near Grand Teton National Park more than a week after she was reported missing. Brian was named a person of interest before going missing as well. He was later found dead by suicide at age 23 in Florida in October 2021. He had a backpack that the FBI confirmed had a notebook where he admitted responsibility for Petito’s death.
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“His point of view speaks for itself through the footage that Gabby took of them together. Then reflecting on what the news and different law enforcement covered around his parents, that also speaks for itself,” Nason told Us about offering Laundrie’s perspective, to which Gasparro added, “It’s important to us to unpack a little bit about Brian as well.”
Laundrie’s parents Roberta and Christopher, who allegedly refused to speak with authorities amid Gabby’s disappearance, have since called out the documentary with a statement, which read, “One perspective depicted as the ‘truth’ as seen through their lens. Each side believes their perspective is correct. Hard to see through the lens of the other with all the noise and distrust.”
The statement noted that “there were no contradictions” made by Roberta Laundrie and Christopher Laundrie.
“The documentary contained many inaccuracies, incorrect juxtapositions of timelines, and misstatements and omissions of fact — perhaps deliberate to capture their ‘truth,’ perhaps due to simple error,” their attorney stated on Tuesday, February 18. “We all know Brian took Gabby’s life and Brian then took his own as well. Let the parents of both Gabby and Brian mourn them in peace.”
Netflix and Stage 29 Productions have not publicly addressed the response from Roberta and Christopher. Nason and Gasparro, meanwhile, told Us about trying to get in contact with Roberta and Christopher.
“We did reach out to his family. It’s hard to open up about this [topic] for that side of the family. So we made best efforts to reach out to them,” Nason noted while Gasparro added, “We reached out to the family, to their lawyer and to Brian’s sister. But we respected the fact that they didn’t want to participate and that’s it.”
American Murder: Gabby Petito is currently streaming on Netflix.
