Why did Gabby Petito’s family sue the Moab, Utah police?

The disappearance and subsequent brutal murder of Gabby Petito during the summer of 2021 shook the United States to the core.

The 22-year-old travel vlogger had set off one a four-month road trip across the country with her fiancé Brian Laundrie in July 2021. The couple planned to document their journey and share the adventure with a series of videos and posts on social media.

Bloggers' road trip ends in tragedy

The Ford Transit Connect van in which Petito and Laundrie were traveling was stopped by officers from Moab on 12 August 2021 following a call from a member of the public who had witnessed a “domestic dispute”. The caller said he saw a man slap a woman, and when she began to run, “he proceeded to hit her.”

After interviewing Gabby and Brian separately, police allowed the couple to continue their trip uninterrupted.

But by the end of August, the videos and Instagram posts had stopped altogether and there was no sign of Gabby. Brian meanwhile had returned to his parents home in North Port, Florida.

Petito‘s parents concerns for their daughter grew after they received strange and sporadic text messages, purportedly from Gabby but completely out of character.

In early September, Petito was reported missing, prompting police had secretly put Laundrie under surveillance. On September 17, Laundrie, who had last been seen on the 13th, was reported missing by his parents.

Two days later human remains were discovered at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area in Wyoming. Petito had been violently murdered and an autopsy concluded that she had been dead for at least three weeks.

An arrest warrant was issued for Laundrie. His remains were found in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. A postmortem revealed that he has died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

In November 2022, Petito’s family filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab police department for failing to protect their daughter. The family believed that Gabby showed traditional signs of domestic abuse from her fiancé which officers should have witnessed and responded to.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a Utah judge on November 20, 2024. Seventh District Court Judge Don Torgerson cited Utah’s governmental immunity law in his decision.

Netflix documentary looks at the Gabby Petito case

The case is brought back to the public’s attention with the release of a new, three-episode Netflix documentary which is available from today. The gruesome story is told in three parts, each 40-49 minutes in duration: We Bought a Van, Where is Gabby? and Burn After Reading.

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