When Gabby Petito went missing in 2021, the case brought social media together in a strange way. Armchair detectives on platforms like TikTok shared surveillance videos, theories about what happened, and even shots of Gabby’s fiancé Brian Laundrie’s family home in Florida. Petito and Laundrie had been traveling across the country vlogging in their van when Laundrie returned home without her. The case was eventually solved, but Petito’s mom, Nichole Schmidt, now says that people are still investigating it.
And, even if some mean well, Schmidt sees no reason for there to be continued theories and even conspiracies regarding her daughter’s death. Schmidt spoke with The Mirror US and said the story is still “ongoing” for those who keep picking apart the case. Sadly, the story originally ended with the discovery of Petito’s body and Laundrie dying by suicide. But tell that to the internet sleuths who are still picking the case apart today.
Gabby Petito’s disappearance and murder gripped social media when it happened.
The Petito case might have been the first major true crime story to go viral in real time on TikTok. Since it happened in 2021, when users were still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and relying heavily on the social media platform for connection and even entertainment, users came together to try and figure out what happened.
They almost did it in tandem with authorities, and it became an unofficial game of users figuring out the truth before detectives did. The case ended, however, when Petito’s remains were found in Wyoming’s Bridger–Teton National Forest. Laundrie died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound and left behind a note admitting that he had killed Petito. Because of the widespread national attention both on and off social media, and the footage of the couple thanks to Petito’s vlog, it’s a true crime story that people still discuss today.
There is even an entire subreddit dedicated to Petito and the case. Some of the posts discuss who Petito was as a person, while others do indeed look back at the case and pick apart certain aspects of it. And the description of the subreddit itself says, “This community is a True Crime subreddit dedicated to the ongoing investigation of her death.”
Her mother is still dealing with “armchair detectives” on social media.
(Photo by Thomas O’Neill/NurPhoto)
Petito’s mom, Schmidt, found that people were still fascinated with the case. But, for her, it didn’t help anything after the fact for faux detectives to continue to examine the case and discuss her daughter’s murder.
“Once she was found, the story was kind of still ongoing,” Schmidt told The Mirror US. “The creators and the armchair detectives, as we like to call them, people who are trying to create these other stories, speculation, and trying to make things different than what the simple answer is, Brian killed her, and then he took his life.”
She added, “They were exploiting things like, you know, Brian’s still alive, or they were crisis actors. This really didn’t happen. You know, Gabby, this whole story is fake. And I’m just like, I wish it was fake.”
Netflix released ‘American Murder: Gabby Petito’ about the case.
In 2025, Netflix released American Murder: Gabby Petito, which details Petito’s life leading up to her disappearance and death and the tumultuous relationship she had with Laundrie. Petito’s parents and loved ones do appear in the docuseries and they share their side of things and what happened to Petito, including the last time they saw or spoke to her before her death.
But, like the case in real life, the Netflix docuseries is pretty cut and dry once all of the facts and footage are presented. So, it seems, Petito’s mother doesn’t have an issue with that, but instead with the public and with social media content creators who still feel the need to discuss Petito’s death and the end of her relationship with Laundrie.
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