According to an amazing notebook confession by Brian Laundrie, he killed girlfriend Gabby Petito in a “mercy killing” because she was in “severe” pain following an accident on their van-life journey in Wyoming.
Images of the eight wet pages given by the Laundrie’s attorney Steve Bertolino now reveal the apparent surprising twist to a tale that has captivated America.
As a result of a “unexpected tragedy” in Grand Teton National Park, where Gabby fell into a creek and hurt herself during their road trip last summer, Laundrie, 23, claims that he strangled his 22-year-old fiancé.
Additionally, he started the notebook with a note to Gabby that he said said: “I wish I could be by your side, I wish I could be talking to you right now.”
Laundrie states in pathetic phrases scrawled in smudged blue pen that he struggled to soothe Gabby while she was deteriorating, sobbing in agony, and shivering from continual cold.
Nevertheless, he ultimately killed her, writing: “I don’t know the extent of Gabby’s injuries, only that she was in great pain.
“I took her life.” I mistakenly believed that it was kind and that it was what she wanted, but I now realize how wrong I was.
I was scared. I was stunned. But as soon as I made my decision, I took away her suffering.
How Laundrie allegedly treated Gabby before taking her life is not known.
On October 20 of last year, after he had fled to the alligator-infested Carlton Reserve near his house in North Port, Florida, his notebook was discovered in a dry bag next to his body. He had fatally shot himself.
He writes, “I am sorry to my family, this is a shock to them as well as a terrible grief (sic),” in an attempt to explain his version of events.
Please don’t make it more difficult for them; this was an unexpected tragedy.
After stopping in Utah on their journey west in Gabby’s 2012 white Ford Transit, the pair arrived at the national park. On social media, they were documenting their vacation.
Rushing back to our car, trying to cross Spread Creek before it got too dark and chilly, Laundrie wrote in his notebook. A splash and a scream may be heard. I shouted her name because I could hardly see and was having trouble finding her.
We had just left Utah’s scorching-hot national parks when I discovered her hardly breathing, gasping, and (because the ink is soaked) shivering in the frigid cold.
She was drenched in water and the temperature had dropped to below zero. When I realized I couldn’t carry her safely, I stumbled, fatigued and in shock, carrying her as far as I could down the stream toward the car.
In a sometimes perplexing monologue, he says, “I made a fire and spooned her as close to the heat, she was so thin, had already been freezing too long.”
I should have built a fire first, but I couldn’t see it at the moment, and I just wanted to get her back to the car and out of the cold. I had no notion where the car might be from where I began the fire. All I knew was that it was across the creek.
“When I dragged Gabby out of the water, she was unable to describe her pain to me. On her forehead, she had a little lump that grew over time. She was in constant pain as we carried her around—her feet hurt, her wrist hurt, but she was also numb and trembling terribly.
Then he starts giving his justification for killing his fiancée. He says: “While lying next to her, she uttered few words while shaking violently, gasping for air, and pleading for an end to her suffering. She would nod off, and I would shake her awake out of concern that if she had a concussion, she shouldn’t close her eyes.
She would awaken in agony, begin her torturous cycle once more, and be angry at me for waking her. She forbade me from attempting to cross the creek because she shared my belief that the fire would die out in her sleep.
He goes on to say that he killed Gabby because it was “merciful” at that point.
I knew I couldn’t go on without her, he continues.
To spend what little time I had left with my family, I hurried home.
“I wanted to travel north and let James or TJ kill me, but even though I’m sure they would have enjoyed to, I wouldn’t want them to go to jail for my mistake.”
“I’m terminating my life not out of fear of retribution, but rather because I can’t stand to live another day without her,” he says of his own fate amid the 25,000-acre swampland on Florida’s west coast.
“I’ve lost every moment we may have treasured together and our entire future together.” For everyone’s loss, I apologize. My family lost a son and a daughter; don’t make things difficult for them. I’m sorry, the most wonderful (?) girl in the entire world.
I committed suicide by this creek in the hopes that animals would rip me apart and bring her family some joy.
He ends with the words “Please pick up all of my things” in larger type, almost as an afterthought. Litterbugs infuriated Gabby.
I want I could be at your side and I wish we could be talking right now, Laundrie wrote as she opened the notebook with a particular note to Gabby. Going over each recollection would allow me to collect even more xxx for the future. But our future is gone.
I’m powerless without you. Every day we (insert date here) spent together, I lost. I won’t ever have the chance to play with (indistinct). Never hike along with T. I can’t even bring myself to look at our pictures and remember the good times because that is why I can’t go on.
“When I close my eyes, I’ll remember laughing on the van’s roof and dozing off while watching a (indistinct) at the crystal geyser.” You have my undying love.
After meeting with the FBI in Tampa, Florida, today/Friday to take control of Brian and Gabby’s personal belongings, attorney Bertolino and the Petitos’ lawyer Patrick Reilly.
Three days before to the meeting, Gabby’s upset mother sobbed as her attorney referred to the behavior of killer Laundrie’s parents as “callous and despicable” in the courtroom.
As she sat next to her ex-husband Joseph Petito, 42, the father of the van-life girl, Nicole Schmidt, 41, fiddled tensely with a necklace.
The grieving mother and father are suing Christopher and Roberta Laundrie on the grounds that they knew their son had killed Gabby after he went home alone to their Florida house and that they attempted to assist him in eluding law enforcement.
They assert that the Laundries committed “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and that a statement made by their attorney in the purpose of putting an end to the hunt for Gabby, who was then missing, was “outrageous” because they allegedly already knew she was dead.
In Florida’s Sarasota County Court, their attorney Reilly stated: “This lawsuit is not merely about Robert and Christopher Laundrie’s silence when they knew their son had brutally murdered Gabby Petito.”
Additionally, he claimed that it wasn’t about their “callous refusal despite requests from the Petito family” to disclose whether or not Gabby was still alive or, in the event that she wasn’t, the whereabouts of her remains.
When they discovered on August 28, 2021 that their son had cruelly murdered Gabby Petito, they began acting in a certain way, he stated.
This, according to Reilly, contained a declaration made by Steve Bertolino, the legal counsel they were receiving at the time, stating their desire for the search to be successful.
The Laundries were not in court, but spotted them the next day close to their North Port house.
Judge Hunter W. Carroll questioned Christopher, 63, and Roberta, 56, about what obligation they had to assist Gabby’s parents in any way.
Reilly responded, “It’s about what they did with the knowledge they had. Not just keeping quiet about what they knew.
The location of Gabby’s body may have been revealed by the Laundries making an anonymous phone call, he continued. The attorney claimed to be aware of Gabby’s parents’ “desperate search” for information.
The Laundries’ motion to dismiss the matter was up for discussion at the hearing. Judge Carroll stated that he wanted to render a written judgement in two weeks after hearing both sides’ arguments.
The Laundries might have to go before a jury next year if he rejects the motion.
For the first time since their daughter Gabby’s sad death, Gabby’s parents had the chance to testify in court. After escaping to a Florida swamp, Laundrie shot himself, preventing them from receiving justice.
The hearing, however, made the couple’s suffering worse because they had to endure arguments. The court was informed that both sets of parents got along before Gabby vanished.
On September 19, 2021, a lonesome location in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest was where Gabby’s bones were eventually found.
In North Port, she and her boyfriend Brian had been residing with his parents. Early in July, the young couple left New York State, where her mother resides, and headed west on an adventure.
On September 1, however, Brian drove his own white Ford van back to the Laundrie residence. After their last phone call on August 25, worried Schmidt reported her daughter missing eleven days later.
North Port Police dragged the white vehicle off the Laundrie’s driveway and transported it away for forensic analysis hours after Gabby’s mother had called the police.
Brian’s parents informed the officers that he wasn’t available when they asked to talk with him at the residence. If the murderer was present, it is unknown.
Then Laundrie vanished in the vicinity of his home in Carlton Reserve, igniting a large manhunt involving the FBI, at least two sheriff’s departments, and local law enforcement.
His parents eventually revised their initial statement to say that he disappeared on September 13 in order to go hiking in the reserve. On October 20, after his parents emerged from hiding and joined law enforcement there, his body was finally discovered in the marsh.
On behalf of the Laundrie family, it is our wish that the hunt for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is reunited with her family, said attorney Bertolino in a statement when Gabby went missing.
Attorney Reilly denounced that claim as a “lie,” claiming it was made to offer Gabby’s parents “false hope” that she might still be alive. He continued, calling it “callous and disgraceful” since they were aware of the parents’ “fragile and emotional state” at the time.
According to the Laundries, I guess it is acceptable to kick someone while they are down, he continued.
Attorney Bertolino was not included as a defendant in the case, according to Reilly, only because he is not a resident of the State of Florida.
The plaintiffs claimed the Laundries had a responsibility to communicate, but “the law imposes no such responsibility to speak,” he continued.
Even if Brian Laundrie told his parents about it, they weren’t required to speak up, Luka continued.
‘It is believed and therefore averred that on or about August 28, 2021, Brian Laundrie notified his parents Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie that he had murdered Gabrielle Petito,’ the attorneys for Gabby’s parents write in response to the Laundries’ move to dismiss the lawsuit.
Roberta and Christopher Laundrie spoke with Steve Bertolino on the same day, and they sent him a retainer for September 2, 2021.
After this period, there was no communication between Christopher Laundrie and Roberta on the one hand, and Joseph Petito and Nicole Schmidt on the other.
According to reports, Gabby’s parents were heartbroken and searching for daughter from August 27 until September 19, “when Gabrielle Petito’s remains were located at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area.”
The Laundrie family took a trip to Fort DeSoto Park on September 6-7, 2021, while Gabrielle Petito’s family was going through a difficult time. They are thought to have known where Gabrielle Petito’s body was when they left for their holiday, knowing that Brian Laundrie had killed her.
‘On or about September 10, 2021, Roberta Laundrie blocked Nichole Schmidt on her cell phone so that neither calls nor messages could be sent, and she blocked her on Facebook in an effort to avoid any contact with Nichole Schmidt.’
They continue by saying that they made the statement through their attorney Bertolino “with full knowledge” that Gabby “had been slain by their son.”
They claim that it was “beyond outrageous” for the Laundries to express their “hope” that Gabrielle Pet was found and reunited with her family at a time when they knew she had been killed by their son.
According to lawyer Luka, the Laundries’ “inaction was not scandalous but legal permitted and constitutionally protected,” in their plea to dismiss the case.
The motion continues, “The Plaintiffs wanted the Laundries to talk or otherwise communicate with them when the Plaintiffs desired the Laundries to have any contact with the Plaintiffs.”
The attorney continues, “The Amended Complaint should never have been filed since that accusation falls so far below the ‘especially high’ criterion for outrageous conduct.”
He declared that the Laundries, who have never been charged criminally in connection with the catastrophe, are allowed to exercise their legal options. A formal criminal probe is not necessary for a person to remain silent, the attorney continued.
Following the court, Bertolino stated that the Laundries had “no regrets” and had reacted appropriately to Gabby’s murder.
Bertolino told News Nation, “We did not have to divulge what I knew, or what Chris and Roberta knew, to any third party, and specifically to law authorities, or the Petito family.”
“I performed all of my duties properly. We are not sorry. The parents followed the appropriate procedures throughout, and they have no regrets.
Bertolino declined to respond when asked explicitly what the Laundries knew about Petito’s death, stating that it “wouldn’t be right for me to remark” in light of the ongoing case.
He did reaffirm what he had already revealed to the media months earlier: “I don’t know exactly what Brian had said to his parents. I had previously declared that what Brian had told me was confidential. I had no intention of sharing it.
Brian and I had discussions. Chris and Roberta and I had chats. Together and separately, I spoke with them in several conversations. Therefore, I cannot comment at this time on what Chris and Roberta knew.