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Text messages and journal entries penned by Gabby Petito have been brought to life with the help of AI in a new Netflix docuseries nearly four years after the vlogger was killed by her fiancé while they were road tripping across the country.
And although her grieving parents gave permission for the use of AI to recreate her voice, her mother and stepfather told The Independent they are struggling after hearing a fake mechanical version of their daughter read out her words. AI, of course, can not bring someone back to life.
“I think it’s weird and because we know her actual voice, [it] is a little off,” Nichole Schmidt, Gabby’s mom, told The Independent via text. “It’s just hard to hear.”
Viewers were divided about the decision to use the voice recreation technology, with some slamming the streaming service, calling it “creepy” and “disrespectful,” while others praised the idea of breathing life into Gabby’s words from her final days. The Independent also reached out to families of other victims to see whether AI voice recreation is something they would want for their own loved ones.
In the first episode of American Murder: Gabby Petito, which began streaming on February 17, a message flashes on the screen that reads, “Gabby Petito’s journal entries and text messages are brought to life in this series in her own voice, using voice recreation technology.”
Viewers then hear an excerpt from Gabby’s journal, narrated in her own voice recreated by AI.
Filmmakers Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro explained the reasoning behind their decision.
“We had so much material from her parents that we were able to get. All of her journals since she was young and there was so much of her writing. She documented her trips and most of her life from a young age. We thought it was really important to bring that to life,” Gasparro told US Weekly this week.
“At the end of the day, we wanted to tell the story as much through Gabby as possible. It’s her story.”
But they made sure to get permission from Gabby’s family to recreate their daughter’s voice. Her mother and stepfather, Nichole and Jim Schmidt, and her father and stepmother, Joseph and Tara Petito, have forever been bonded from the tragedy, and all participated in the docuseries.
“We reached out to the family to get their blessing and then we worked diligently to represent it in exactly how it was written,” Gasparro added. “That allowed you to hear it through her own words.”
Although they gave their full permission, Nichole and Jim still found it very difficult to hear the AI version of Gabby when they watched the documentary themselves.
“AI or her real voice, I still get upset hearing it knowing she’s gone,” her stepfather Jim Schmidt told The Independent.
Some viewers found the AI voice disturbing and took to social media to share their thoughts.
“I’m watching #AmericanMurderGabbyPetito and HOLY S**T. They’ve used AI voice recreation to have Gabby Petito reading journal entries and text messages from the last months of her life…this is a deeply unsettling use of AI,” one person wrote on X.
Another person wrote that they didn’t like that it “put words in her mouth that she didn’t actually speak, especially since she can’t give consent… documentaries aren’t supposed to be fictional.”
“I understand they had permission from the parents, but that doesn’t make it feel any better,” another person wrote. “This woman had her voice taken from her, so to recreate it with a poor substitute – a monotone, lacking in emotion AI model – is an insult to her. There is absolutely no need for it.”
But one viewer, and close follower of Gabby’s case, who knows the horrors of losing a loved one to murder, felt very differently.
When Christy Kennedy watched the docuseries, she couldn’t help but think of her own sister Brenda Lambert, who went missing 32 years ago from Bluewell, West Virginia. No body has been found, but Brenda was legally declared dead in 2022, and her sister says she was a victim of domestic violence.
Kennedy told The Independent that she would have no problem using AI to recreate her sister’s voice if she had the chance — in fact she wishes it was even a possibility.
“We’re an old school missing person family. We had nothing but a pen, paper and feet back then and all of this technology from the Internet to AI is so valuable,” she said.
“Anything to raise awareness for not only Brenda, but also awareness for domestic violence and missing and/or murdered persons. No one should live this life. It’s harder when there’s no resources and I’m hoping that people come to realize just how helpful technology can be especially when your mind is already taking blow after blow.”
“I know that Brenda would be cheering for this and I feel the same about Gabby,” she said.
“We were alone for 30 years fighting this, we know the value of technology.”
Other families had mixed feelings about using AI to recreate a victim’s voice. Sarah Turney, who, like Christy Kennedy, knows the pain of losing a sister, told The Independent that she would rather let her sister’s silence speak for itself.
“She used her real voice her entire life to scream for help and no one listened,” Turney said. “I hope her silence now is deafening to those who were in positions and had the responsibility to help her.”
Turney was just 12 years old when her 17-year-old sister Alissa disappeared from their Arizona school on May 17, 2001. Turney believes Alissa was killed, but her body has never been found.
Alissa’s story went viral in 2020 when Turney posted her suspicions that her father Michael Turney was the one who killed Alissa. She continued to investigate her sister’s disappearance, which eventually led to her father’s arrest. He has denied killing Alissa and was acquitted of her murder in July 2023.
After dedicating years to finding Alissa, Turney launched multiple podcasts and eventually, the Voices for Justice Media network, to help other families of missing loved ones.
While she says she fully supports what each family feels is right for their loved one, she would not support the use of AI to recreate Alissa’s voice, instead preferring that silence “convey[s] the harsh reality that she is gone and likely never coming back.”
“I think while consumers enjoy their true crime wrapped up neatly in a bow at times, it doesn’t convey the real loss and horror of these tragedies,” Turney added.
