Not buying the official story.
The family is still searching for answers, nearly four years after the tragic death of Gabby Petito, who was murdered by her fiancé Brian Laundrie during a cross-country road trip in their camper van back in August 2021.
The 22-year old Petito was first reported missing in September after her family wasn’t able to get ahold of her. And then it was revealed that Laundrie had returned home to Florida alone in their van, immediately lawyering up and refusing to cooperate with investigators and family members desperate to find Gabby.
Petito’s body was found in the Grand Teton National Forest in September of 2021, and it was announced that her death had been a homicide caused by strangulation. Naturally Laundrie was the prime suspect, but when authorities went to arrest the man, there was another problem: He had fled too.
According to Laundrie’s parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, their son had arrived home on September 1. And on September 6, the family had gone camping with Brian in Fort De Soto Park, returning home on September 7. But by September 17, the parents had reported their son missing, with investigators claiming that they had mistaken Brian for his mother, Roberta, while surveilling the house, allowing their prime suspect to get away.
Obviously this set off a massive manhunt for Brian, that included state and federal law enforcement and even Dog the Bounty Hunter, who said he believed that he knew where Laundrie was hiding.
But on October 23, Laundrie’s parents went out searching for their son and a short time later it was announced that some of his property had been found, along with skeletal remains that were thought to have been Brian.
The remains, which were found in an area that had previously been covered in water, were determined to be Brian through the use of dental records, and a forensic anthropologist determined that he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Along with the gun that was recovered near his body, authorities also found a note confessing to the murder of Petito, though Brian claimed that he thought it was “merciful” because Gabby had fallen and injured himself and begged him to put an end to her pain.
Investigators dismissed Laundrie’s story, noting that his admission didn’t match the evidence after ruling that Petito had died from blunt force trauma and strangulation. And bodycam footage from a police encounter when the couple was stopped in Moab, Utah days before the murder painted a troubling picture of the relationship, leading many to believe that Laundrie was both physically and emotionally abusive.
There’s been a renewed interest in the case recently with the release of a new Netflix documentary, American Murder: Gabby Petito. The documentary also renewed interest – and outrage – at Chris and Roberta Laundrie for their refusal to help the Petito family with the search for their daughter and their seemingly conflicting stories.
One particular detail that raised red flags about Roberta Laundrie was a “burn after reading” letter written from the mother to Brian Laundrie, which was released during a civil trial after the Petito family filed a lawsuit against the Laundries.
In the letter, Roberta Laundrie wrote to Brian:
“If you’re in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I’ll get new guts.”
Roberta Laundrie claims that the letter had nothing to do with Gabby Petito, and that it was written prior to her disappearance. But critics are skeptical and believe that it proves she knew what Brian had done before he went missing.
And one of those critics is Nichole Schmidt, mother of Gabby Petito who has been fighting for justice for her daughter.
During a recent interview on The Squeeze podcast, Schmidt expressed her suspicion that the Laundries weren’t exactly honest about what happened with their son:
“Is it awkward the way it happened? Yes. I don’t understand how the parents were able to come and all of a sudden he was found. It’s weird. It’s definitely weird, and I do have questions about certain things, like the bag being found so easily.”
And she also dropped a bombshell when she said that she doesn’t believe Laundrie killed himself:
“It’s all around those parents… I will say, straightforward, I don’t think he killed himself. I think either his father did or she did. I have no problem saying that. That’s just my opinion, it’s not a fact, it’s an opinion.”
When asked why she believes the parents would have killed them, she cited the “burn after reading” letter as an example of the strange relationship between Laundrie and his parents:
“Better than going to jail or facing what you did. That’s the only thing that I could come up with in my mind.
If you read her ‘burn after reading’ letter, and just the weirdness that they are, I don’t find it implausible. I think it’s very possible that they did something.”
Schmidt also says that based on the writings that were found in his notebook, Laundrie made excuses for Petito’s death and didn’t want to take responsibility for his actions, which made her question why he would then turn around and commit suicide. And she says that Roberta Laundrie showed no emotion when speaking about her son and his death during her deposition in the civil case:
“I don’t understand, other than the fact that his mother is a sociopath of some sort. I can’t comprehend, if it was the other way around, I would have called them immediately…
They knew what he did. They helped him.”
