Days before her murder, Gabby Petito made a desperate phone call to her ex boyfriend.

American Murder: Gabby Petito is a new three-part Netflix documentary series examining the tragic case of 22-year-old vlogger Gabby Petito.

The series explores Petito's 2021 disappearance and murder during a cross-country van trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie, who later confessed to killing her in Wyoming before taking his own life.

The documentary features interviews with Petito's family and friends, along with many disturbing text messages, video footage and excerpts from Gabby's diary entries.

Watch the trailer. Post continues after video. 

The three-part docuseries delves beyond the viral social media coverage of Petito's disappearance, offering a glimpse into the way Brian emotionally manipulated, isolated and coercively controlled Gabby throughout their relationship.

The Netflix documentary covers a lot of ground so we've rounded up the biggest revelations… and there are A LOT.

There were early warning signs with Brian Laundrie.

Gabby's best friend in Florida, Rose Davis, said that from the moment she met Brian at the beach with Gabby, something felt wrong. "It felt like a parent was watching us on a play date. It was very weird," she said.

When she got home, she told her mother, "He's a really nice guy but there is something off about him."

The more time she spent with Gabby and Brian, the more worried she grew. "Brian had a very dark side of him," she recalled. "He seemed very manipulative."

During one incident, Gabby flaked on plans because she got into a 'fight' with Brian and he stole her wallet. "Brian admitted he stole it because he didn't want her to go out," Rose recalled.

Rose noted she would often see Gabby sobbing after these fights, but things would be smoothed over by Brian making a grand gesture.

"She would get so upset about the way he would treat her, but then he'd do this sweet, amazing thing, and she'd be like 'No, I'm lucky. I don't deserve him.'"

Gabby Petito's friend Rose. Image: Netflix. 

When Brian proposed to Gabby, she was weird about announcing it. "She didn't want to tell anybody," Gabby's mum Nichole Schmidt reflected.

"I thought that was really strange."

Rose said she was 'dumbfounded' when they got engaged.

Brian Laundrie's mother allegedly mistreated Gabby Petito.

Early in their relationship, the couple moved from New York to Florida to live with Brian's parents.

"At first Gabby seemed to be enjoying it," Gabby's mum Nichole said. "But then she [Brian's mother Roberta] started getting comfortable and not treating her as nicely."

In a text exchange, Gabby messaged Brian to say his mother was "not in a good mood," and she was "nervous to walk out of the room." Brian replied that he was "ashamed" of his mum.

In another incident, Gabby claimed Roberta suddenly reverted her registered address to her old one in New York.

Gabby's stepmother, Tara Petito, said Roberta was jealous of her son's girlfriend.

"Brian's mum was having problems with how much time Gabby and Brian were spending together," Tara said.

"Her jealousy was definitely very odd."

Gabby Petito's father and step-mum. Image: Netflix. 

Brian Laundrie began to isolate Gabby Petito.

After Gabby got a job at Taco Bell to save money for their planned van trip, Brian started to mistrust her social circle.

"She would work then hang out with me. That's when Brian started feeling neglected and having this possessiveness over Gabby," Rose said.

The documentary shows Brian sending Gabby abusive messages about who she was with, telling her she was "f**king disgusting."

He would constantly text her that he was 'crying' over her, prompting her to apologise to him.

Brian even contacted Gabby's mother, Nichole.

"He called me and was like, 'Gabby's working really late every night, and she's hanging out with these people, and they're bad.' And… I believed him," she said.

Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie's van trip was tumultuous from the start.

Right before the van trip began, Rose saw something shift in Gabby.

"I think there was a moment before her van life that she started to open her eyes," she said.

In a text she sent to Brian, she wrote, "Don't try to control me because it only makes me mad."

Rose said she believes Brian pushed for the van trip further isolate Gabby from her friends and family.

Gabby planned to vlog the trip and footage from the camera showed there was tension between the engaged couple throughout.

"Early on, Gabby told me that Brian didn't think the vlog idea was a good idea," Rose said. "He thought it was stupid."

The police bodycam footage is even worse in full.

Weeks before the murder, the couple were questioned over a 'domestic dispute' by police.

After getting a call about a 'male hitting a female', the police pulled over Gabby and Brian. The couple were separated and throughout the footage, they repeatedly say that Brian was the victim and Gabby was the 'aggressor' despite the witness' account.

Officers seemingly ignore the fact that Gabby has a black eye, instead focusing on the fingernail marks on Brian.

Gabby Petito appeared emotionally distressed in the bodycam footage. Image: Netflix.

In one of many infuriating parts, Gabby is sobbing and talking about her anxiety when an officer tells her, "If you know you have anxiety, look at the situations you get in."

At the same time, Brian is laughing along with the officers like they're old friends.

The police decided to separate them for the night, but they placed Brian in a hotel while Gabby stayed alone in the van. "Why is he going to a hotel and you're in a van by yourself?" Nichole asked Gabby.

However, Brian and Gabby reunited that same night and continued their trip.

Gabby contacted her ex-boyfriend days before she disappeared.

Days before Gabby disappeared, she and Brian had a short time apart. During these few days, Gabby stayed at a hotel.

It was at this time that her ex-boyfriend Jackson got a text from her.

"I would really love to talk to you, I'm only alone until tomorrow," she sent.

Jackson called Gabby on the phone and said she appeared distressed. "She hinted that she and Brian had gotten into an argument," he recalled.

"She was like, 'I have a plan. I think I want to leave him. I'm going to do it. I need to figure out when to do it.'"

He went on to say that he detected fear in her words.

"From the sound of her voice and the way she was saying it, it sounded like she wasn't sure what he would do or what he could do," he recalled.

"I made sure that she knew to be very careful."

A few days later, Jackson had a missed call from Gabby. This was the last time he ever heard from her.

Gabby's final texts to her mum were alarming.

Nichole was texting Gabby, as she was concerned about her well-being after the police incident. Gabby admitted that she and Brian had separated on their trip.

"I convinced Brian to go camp out in the woods, so I can have the van to myself," she texted. "It's what he wants to do anyway. I don't care."

Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie. Image: Netflix. 

Then she texted a very odd thing. "He said I could have the van if I paid him," she messaged.

At this point, her mum asked if they were breaking up, and Gabby replied, "No, I just said I could make more money as a solo female van lifer."

After Gabby went missing, Brian's parents ignored her family's messages.

As Gabby stopped replying to her loved ones' messages, they suspected something was wrong.

Nichole texted Roberta to ask if "you've heard from the kids," to which she got no response. After a follow-up message, she suspected she was "blocked or the phone was shut off."

Gabby's father did the same, reaching out to Brian's mother, father and sister, and "no one responded."

When the police visited Brian's parents, they refused to talk to them.

The documentary features footage of police visiting Brian's parents' Florida home and appearing very shifty. "Brian is here and that's all I'm going to say," his father said, before offering their attorney's phone number.

One officer spoke to Brian's sister. "She called me back and said, 'Oh, Brian's home. He told me they got into a fight. He left her at a hotel and flew home,'" she said.

This claim was contradicted by the fact their van was sitting in the driveway.

FBI agent Loretta Bush said that Brian's family did not help with the search for Gabby, instead his immediate family went on a camping trip together after he came back.

Brian sent text messages between himself and Gabby after the murder.

After killing Gabby, Brian hitchhiked back to the van where her phone was located. He sent text messages to Gabby's phone. He then sent replies from Gabby's phone to his own to establish an alibi.

Bush noted that "the activity between the two phones was almost instantaneous. Brian was holding both phones and talking directly to himself."

Brian then sent a text from Gabby's phone to her mother Nichole, but instead of referring to her grandfather as 'Grandpa', he referred to him by his first name, which raised red flags.

Gabby Petito and their van. Image: Netflix. 

On his van trip home, he used Gabby's credit card to pay for petrol and transferred $700 from Gabby's account to his own, writing on the transfer 'Goodbye Brian, I'll never ask you again for anything.'

Brian's mother wrote a disturbing letter about the murder.

In a letter addressed to Brian and titled 'Burn after reading', she wrote, "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."

Brian made several phone calls to his parents in the days after the murder. His parents wired money to their attorney.

The parents have never spoken publicly about what happened.

In Brian's final moments, he lied about Gabby's death.

Weeks after Gabby went missing, Brian's parents found his dead body in a nearby park in Florida. Inside his backpack, he had photos of himself and Gabby along with multiple letters.

In one, he wrote that he had found Gabby in a body of water 'splashing' and 'screaming' and had "found her breathing barely."

He wrote that she 'begged for an end to her pain' so he 'ended her life' because it was 'merciful.'

None of this was true. Gabby's autopsy found that she was killed by blunt-force injuries to her head along with manual strangulation.

"The sole cause of her death was strangulation," Gabby's step-dad Jim said. "[It was] nothing remotely or even close to what he said."

Feature image: Netflix.