Lifetime will make TV movie about death of North Port’s Gabby Petito

Less than a year since the disappearance and murder of 22-year-old Gabby Petito of North Port, Lifetime has announced it is making a TV movie about the case that triggered a national search and widespread interest last fall.

Lifetime said Emmy-nominated actress Thora Birch, who has been seen in “The Walking Dead,” “American Beauty” and “Ghost World,” will make her directorial debut with the film, tentatively titled “The Gabby Petito Story,” and will play the Nicole Schmidt, the mother of the social media influencer.

Authorities said Petito was killed by her boyfriend, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, whose parents also live in North Port, during a cross-country trip that began last July in New York State and ended with her death from strangulation near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

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The 23-year-old Laundrie returned to his parents’ home alone on Sept. 1 before he disappeared. Authorities conducted numerous searches over five weeks in the 168-acre Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in North Port before his body was found. They said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The couple documented their van trip on social media, and the widespread news coverage of the case led many followers to search for her after she failed to return home.

In a statement, Lifetime said the film “will explore Gabby and her fiancé Brian Laundrie’s complicated relationship and what may have gone wrong during their cross-country trip that resulted in Gabby’s tragic murder. The movie will be shot this summer in Utah and is expected to have its premiere later this year.

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“The movie will bring to life Gabby and Brian’s doomed love story, including the warning signs that Gabby’s life was in danger, the ensuing search for her, the eventual discovery of her murder and ultimately, Brian’s suicide,” the network statement said.

The film will be written by Gregory Small and Richard Blaney, who previously wrote the Lifetime film “Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret” and worked on the series “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles.”

Other casting will be announced later.

The network, well known for its movies about women in danger, said it is developing several projects about violence against women whose cases did not receive the same media attention.

Last December, Peacock aired the documentary “The Murder of Gabby Petito: Truth, Lies and Social Media.”

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Gabby Petito: Alleged death at hands of Brian Laundrie to be Lifetime movie