A recent Netflix documentary, American Murder: Gabby Petito, has shed new light on a phone call between Gabby Petito and her ex-boyfriend before her tragic death.
The documentary revisits the story of Gabby Petito, an aspiring YouTuber, whose life was cut short during what was supposed to be a dream cross-country trip across the US with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, in 2021. The journey turned tragic when Gabby went missing a few months in, after her parents stopped receiving her text messages.
Brian returned home to his parents in Florida, shortly before he also disappeared. Investigators later found Gabby’s remains on September 19 in the Spread Creek camping area in Wyoming. An autopsy concluded she died due to ‘blunt-force injuries’ to her head and neck and ‘manual strangulation’.
In October 2021, Brian’s body was discovered in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. Medical examiners determined he died by suicide, having inflicted a gunshot wound to his head. A notebook found with his body contained a confession to Gabby’s murder.
The documentary reveals that during her trip, Gabby contacted her ex-boyfriend, Jackson. On August 22, she reached out with a text saying: “Hi, I’m sure I’m the last person on the planet you want to hear from. I would really love to talk to you. I’m only alone until tomorrow.”
Jackson described their subsequent phone call as a ‘cry for help’, explaining: “I think she wanted to get away but just didn’t know how to do it. I think she wasn’t sure what he would do, or what he could do.”
He further shared with The Mirror US: “I got the vibe that she may still need somebody to talk to after we hung up, so I was like, ‘Hey, if you do need to talk again, let me know, it’s okay, I’m okay with that’.”
During their conversation, Gabby hinted at an argument with Brian and expressed her determination to leave him.
“She kind of hinted the fact that they had got into an argument a little bit, she said, ‘I have a plan, I think I want to leave him. I’m gonna do it, I have to figure out when I’m going to do it’,” Jackson recounted. “From the sound of her voice and the way she was saying it, I think that she wasn’t sure of what he would do or what he could do. I think she was wanting to get away but just didn’t know how to do it.”
Jackson mentioned receiving another call from Gabby on August 27, along with a Snapchat indicating she was in Wyoming. Unfortunately, he couldn’t answer due to work commitments.
“I think back on the fact that maybe if I did answer that phone call, I could have helped or there could have been a different outcome,” he lamented to The Independent.
The documentary, American Murder: Gabby Petito, is now available for streaming on Netflix.