The following is an excerpt from the new book, Murder on the Trail: Mysteries, Deaths, and Disappearances in National Parks, by Michelle Kaminsky.
A sense of adventure and a dream to become a social media storyteller drew Gabby Petito, 22, from the East Coast westward on a tour of U.S. national parks. In the summer of 2021, she set out with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, in her prized retrofitted van. She became part of the #vanlife community—people who converted vehicles into mobile homes, allowing them to travel indefinitely and work remotely.
Gabby’s online following grew steadily as she shared their travels through some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes, including the monstrous sand deposits of Great Sand Dunes National Park, Zion National Park’s rust-colored cliffs, and the otherworldly terrain of Bryce Canyon National Park. When not out adventuring, Gabby edited her photos and videos from inside the cramped van.
On August 25, 2021, Gabby posted her last Instagram carousel—a series of photos featuring her beaming (sometimes holding a crocheted pumpkin) in front of a butterfly mural. The caption read, “Happy Halloween.” There was no notice to followers that she would be taking a break—no indication that anything was amiss. After that post, Gabby went silent. She had simply vanished from social media and, as her loved ones would soon realize, also from their own worlds.
When Brian returned to his parents’ home in Florida with the van alone on September 1, with no explanation as to where Gabby was, the silence began to roar.
What followed was a case that highlighted the complex intersection of national park beauty, the digital age, and domestic violence.
Gabby and Brian
Gabby and Brian had been classmates at Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York, but they didn’t know each other well until their paths crossed on a dating app in 2019, about two years post-graduation. They connected over shared interests in hiking, camping, and, perhaps most of all, the desire to lead an unconventional life that didn’t include a nine-to-five job behind a desk. Neither yearned for a traditional suburban existence, and they both loved nature, so in some ways, their eventual national parks road trip was a logical step in their relationship.
When the couple got engaged in late 2020, Gabby’s dream of #vanlife only deepened as the vision of a future together as a married couple on the road came into focus.
Next came the first concrete step in creating their new reality: the purchase of a white 2012 Ford Transit Connect van for $10,000 in early 2021. Gabby and Brian spent months converting the vehicle into a tiny home on wheels. When they were finished, the van featured a wooden platform bed, storage compartments, and plants. Gabby favored bohemian-style decor and hung fairy lights to complete the cozy atmosphere.
The Timeline of the Journey
On August 19, Gabby posted to Nomadic Statik, the YouTube channel where she was planning to share longer videos of the couple’s adventures. The first (and, as it turned out, only) installment was an eight-minute introduction to the couple titled, “VAN LIFE | Beginning Our Van Life Journey.” Overlaid with upbeat music and featuring sweet, playful moments shared between the couple, the video came to highlight a troubling aspect of life as portrayed online.
Brian Stafford, a digital media analyst interviewed by The New York Times, noted that “the gap between their curated online presence and what was actually happening in that van represents a particularly extreme version of the disconnect that exists in most social media.”
The final Instagram post from Gabby’s account was published on August 25. It didn’t have a geotag, but FBI investigators later determined it came from Grand Teton National Park’s Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in Wyoming.
Spread Creek was the last confirmed location where Gabby was seen alive.
The Moab Police Stop Gabby and Brian
Two weeks before Gabby disappeared, she was involved in a troubling encounter with local police—a harrowing scene now etched in the minds of millions of people who have seen the body cam footage of the August 12 traffic stop in Moab, Utah.
That day, around 4:30 P.M., Officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins of the Moab City Police Department responded to a call from a witness who reported seeing a “gentleman slapping a girl” outside the Moonflowers Community Cooperative.
The officers located and pulled over the white Ford Transit van near the entrance of Arches National Park. A police body camera filmed what ensued, and the 2025 Netflix documentary American Murder: Gabby Petito opens with distressing images of Gabby sobbing uncontrollably as she explained to Officer Robbins what had happened.
Brian told the officers that Gabby had slapped him. He said he had pushed her away when she tried to grab his keys, but that he hadn’t hit her. He claimed the scratches on his face came from Gabby’s phone. Brian presented himself as a calm, rational partner attempting to de-escalate the situation by suggesting they take time apart.
Officer Pratt suggested that the two separate for the night.
This dramatic police encounter would later become the subject of intense scrutiny and an independent investigation conducted by Captain Brandon Ratcliffe of the Price City Police Department. His January 2022 report noted that the officers made “several unintentional mistakes” during the incident, including failing to classify it as domestic violence despite evidence suggesting Gabby was likely the victim, not the aggressor. The 102-page report concluded that “the officers failed to recognize the serious danger that she was in.”
After the police encounter, Gabby and Brian continued their journey.
Gabby Is Reported Missing
On September 1, Brian returned to his parents’ home in Florida in the van—without Gabby. The investigation later revealed that he drove the 2,300-mile cross-country journey from Wyoming to Florida alone. Gabby’s mom had last heard from her daughter on August 30 via text message, although she later doubted whether those final messages had come from Gabby.
Ten days after Brian arrived in Florida, Gabby’s family reported her missing. It had been nearly two weeks since they had heard anything from Gabby.
Once authorities began asking Brian questions, he retained legal counsel and refused to cooperate regarding Gabby’s whereabouts.
A Frenzy Breaks Out on Social Media
Gabby’s disappearance quickly became a social media phenomenon. Armchair detectives began obsessively analyzing Gabby’s online presence, especially her Instagram account; several commenters suggested that some captions had been recently edited, implying that someone was altering the account weeks after the posts had been uploaded.
By mid-September, the hashtag #FindGabby on TikTok had garnered more than 1.2 billion views. Internet sleuths combed through social media accounts, analyzed photo backgrounds, crosschecked timelines, and attempted to pinpoint locations.
One TikTok user named Miranda Baker, who came upon the hashtag content, realized that she and her boyfriend had seen Brian hitchhiking alone in Grand Teton National Park on August 29. They picked him up, Baker said, and Brian told them that his girlfriend was back at their van working on social media about their cross-country journey.
The widespread coverage of Gabby’s disappearance ultimately reached fellow travel vloggers Jenn and Kyle Bethune, who had been documenting their own cross-country trip. While reviewing footage they had filmed in Wyoming’s Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area on August 27, they noticed what appeared to be Gabby and Brian’s van parked along a dirt road. The Bethunes shared this crucial footage on YouTube on September 18.
This tip led search teams to the precise location where the Bethunes had spotted the van.
Officials Discover Gabby’s Remains
The next morning, on September 19, National Park Service rangers and FBI agents conducted a targeted search of the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area. Around 10:30 A.M., in a remote, wooded area along the eastern boundary of Grand Teton National Park, approximately 1,000 feet from where the Bethunes had spotted the van, search teams discovered human remains that matched Gabby’s description. The location was just 27 feet from a creek bed, partially concealed by brush and trees, suggesting an attempt to hide the body rather than a carefully planned burial.
On September 21, dental records left no further doubt that the remains were Gabby’s. Authorities determined that she had been murdered but did not publicly speculate on a specific cause of death. The full autopsy results were made public a few weeks later, identifying that Gabby had died by “manual strangulation/throttling.” Teton County coroner Dr. Brent Blue placed Gabby’s date of death at about three to four weeks before her body was discovered—between August 22 and August 29.
The Gabby Petito Act
In response to the failures identified in handling domestic violence incidents following Gabby’s murder, several state legislatures took action. In Florida, the state that Gabby last called home, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Gabby Petito Act” into law, introducing substantial changes to how law enforcement agencies are required to respond to domestic violence calls. Now, all law enforcement agencies must adopt standardized domestic violence procedures that include a “lethality assessment”—a series of evidence-based questions designed to identify high-risk situations where victims face an elevated danger of being killed by their intimate partners.
Michelle Kaminsky’s true crime writing is driven by a lifelong fascination with criminal minds, motivations, and MOs. Her books include Murder on the Trail (2025), Serial Killer Trivia (2019), Serial Killer Trivia: Cold Cases (2021), and The Big Book of 1980s Serial Killers (2024). Michelle is the mom of a human kid and a rescued hound, and she is probably listening to a true crime podcast right now. You can find her @michkaminsky throughout social media.
This excerpt was edited for length and clarity. Copyright © 2025 Ulysses Press. Reprinted with permission from Ulysses Press. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
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