Brian Laundrie’s callous text to friend after he strangled fiancée Gabby Petito to death on cross-country road trip: ‘Gab and I had fun’
Brian Laundrie exchanged callous text messages with a friend days after strangling his fiancée Gabby Petito during a cross-country road trip.
Petito, 22, disappeared after embarking on a trip across America with her boyfriend in June 2021.
Laundrie, 23, killed her on or about August 28 in Wyoming before committing suicide out of guilt and her remains were found in Grand Teton National Park on September 19.
But he sent a series of text messages, seen through The messenger, to a friend named Ben on September 4 and pretended everything was fine.
“The trip was good,” he wrote after returning to Florida. “Gab and I had fun. Tired now, I’m going to sleep for a week.’
Brian Laundrie exchanged callous text messages with a friend days after strangling his fiancée Gabby Petito during a cross-country road trip
Laundrie, 23, killed her on or about August 28 in Wyoming before committing suicide out of guilt and her remains were found on September 19 in Grand Teton National Park.
He sent a series of text messages, seen by The Messenger, to a friend named Ben on September 4 and pretended everything was fine
The message exchange between Laundrie and his friend Ben did not indicate that anything was wrong.
“We created a lot of content,” he wrote, referring to the couple’s YouTube travel channel. “It was once in a lifetime.”
Petito spent the summer with Laundrie in a white van documenting their adventures before she disappeared.
He returned to his parents’ home in Florida on September 1 without Petito and her family reporting her missing on September 11.
Laundrie was named by police as a person of interest in her disappearance.
Petito’s strangled body was found shortly afterwards in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Before he could be arrested, Laundrie was found dead at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Florida.
A notebook was found in which he confessed to killing her, claiming he did so to end her pain after she fell.
“I took her life,” Laundrie wrote. ‘I thought it was merciful that she wanted that, but I now see all the mistakes I made. I panicked, I was in shock.”
But days before Petito’s death, the couple was questioned by police in Moab, Utah, after a member of the public called 911 and reported that they had had a physical altercation.
Authorities separated them for the night, but no charges were filed.
Petito, 22, disappeared after embarking on a trip across America with her boyfriend in June 2021
“The trip was good,” he wrote after returning home to Florida. “Gab and I had fun. Tired now, go to sleep for a week’
The message exchange between Laundrie and his friend Ben did not indicate that anything was wrong. Pictured: Petito selfie shows a beaten and bruised face moments before a traffic stop in Utah
Pictured: Gabby Petito crying and visibly upset as police questioned her days before her death
Petito’s parents have filed a $50 million lawsuit against Moab City police for failing to arrest Laundrie after finding Petito bloodied and in distress following a fight days before her death.
The lawsuit cited transcripts of an interview between a Moab police officer who stopped the couple after receiving a phone call from Petito claiming she was being assaulted by Laundrie.
Legal filings name officer Eric Pratt as a defendant, charging that both he and his department failed to comply with their duties as peace officers by failing to make an arrest, despite Pratt later telling other officers that Laundrie “had more red flags hoisted than a Chinese communist meeting’. ‘
A Utah statute requires all officers to make an arrest or issue a citation in all domestic incidents.
When questioned about the incident during a recent outside investigation, Pratt admitted to police that he considered Laundrie a threat to Petito’s well-being at the time.
Before Laundrie’s death, his mother wrote her son a letter promising to help him bury a body and escape prison.
Petito’s parents claim this is proof she helped hatch a plot with her son to cover up their daughter’s brutal murder. They’re suing them because they claim they knew about her murder.
A lawsuit against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie claims the couple knew their son had killed Petito and refused to tell her parents the location of the girl’s remains
Laundrie’s mother Roberta offered in a letter to help her son dispose of a corpse as proof of her love for him
She also said she would bake a cake with a file in it for her son if he was sent to prison
The undated letter, which Roberta told her son to “read after reading it,” said she offered to bake her son a cake with a file in it if he was sent to prison.
Roberta also offered to help her son dispose of a corpse as proof of her love for him.
“I want you to remember that I will always love you and I know you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can stop me from loving you, nothing will or can ever divide us,” Roberta wrote in the letter.
An attorney representing the laundries, Steven Bertolino, submitted a proposal to Gabby’s parents, Joe Petito and Nichole Schmidt, for an undisclosed amount.
The civil lawsuit, which also names Bertolino as a defendant, alleges that they knew about Gabby’s murder and chose to remain silent, causing untold emotional harm to her parents.
Depositions for the case began last month and a jury trial is scheduled for May 2024.