The trip was planned to last for four months and began on July 2, , but Petito disappeared on August After Petito's disappearance, Laundrie raised suspicion when he drove the van from Wyoming back to his parents' Florida home and refused to discuss her whereabouts.
He was deemed a person of interest in the case and an arrest warrant was issued on charges of him making withdrawals using her debit card. He left his home on September 13 and was reported missing four days later.
An autopsy found that she was killed by blunt-force injuries to her head and neck and manual strangulation. After a month of speculation around Laundrie's whereabouts, and an extended search of the area around his home, his skeletal remains were discovered in Florida's Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on October It was confirmed by an autopsy on November 23 that Laundrie had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and the FBI later announced that he had admitted to killing Petito in his notebook, which was found near his remains.
The case gained widespread attention due to the couple's documenting of their travels on social media , leaked police body camera video footage, emergency dispatch call recordings, eyewitness accounts, the actions of Laundrie's parents, and the extensive media coverage. Gabrielle Venora Petito March 19, β c. In , Petito and her step-brothers appeared in a music video to raise awareness about American gun violence in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
She applied to Cape Fear Community College , but did not attend. Petito began dating Laundrie in March , [ 7 ] and moved in with him and his parents in North Port, Florida. The couple worked at a Publix in North Port, where she was a pharmacy technician and he was in the grocery department.
