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16th Dec 2021

Gabby Petito’s mum breaks down recalling the final moment with her daughter

Laura Grainger

Her parents described her disappearance as “every parent’s nightmare”.

Gabby Petito’s parents have opened up about the memories they have of their beloved 22-year-old daughter, with her mum recalling the final moment they shared ahead of the cross-country trip she never returned from.

In Peacock’s new documentary, The Murder of Gabby Petito: Truth, Lies, and Social Media, Gabby’s parents and stepparents reflected on her life before it was tragically ended by strangulation.

“Doesn’t matter how old she got, she would always be my baby girl,” Gabby’s dad, Joseph Petito, said. “Doesn’t matter how much trouble she got in, she was still my baby girl.”

The dad and Gabby’s stepmum, Tara Petito, flicked through photos of her at different life stages. “These are all I have left now,” he added.

Gabby’s mum and stepdad, Nichole and Jim Schmidt, also featured in the documentary, with Jim describing her disappearance as “every parent’s nightmare”.

Nichole broke down while speaking about the last moment she shared with her daughter.

“People would meet her and just fall in love with her,” Nichole shared. “She just had this presence. I don’t know what it was. It was just magical.

“There are so many good memories over the years, but the one thing that I hold dear to me is the hug that we had before she left for the trip in the driveway,” she continued, before bursting into tears.

A press release for the documentary, which lands on Peacock tomorrow, claims it “leaves no stone unturned” in its pursuit of finding out what happened during Gabby’s cross-country trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.

The couple embarked on the trip in a converted camper van in July, but Nichole filed a missing person report on September 11 after not hearing from Gabby since late August.

The 22-year-old’s body was found ten days later at Grand Teton National Park, where she was last seen with Brian on their trip.

Her death was ruled a homicide by the FBI, revealing she had died as a result of strangulation manually.

Brian himself then went missing, telling his parents that he was going for a hike in the Carlton Reserve in Florida but never came home, despite then being a person of interest in the missing persons case.

His remains were found at the spot on October 20, with an anthropologist listing his cause of death as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.