Brian Laundrie’s mother wrote him a letter promising to help him bury a body and escape prison before he left on his ill-fated road trip with his fiancé Gabby Petito.
Roberta Laundrie claims she wrote it prior to the start of the June 2021 road trip the couple took across the country that would end in Petito’s death two months later.
It angered Petito’s parents, who say it is evidence that she had plotted with her son to cover up their daughter’s brutal murder.
In the undated letter, which Roberta instructed her son to “burn after reading,” she revealed that she offered to bake her son a cake with a file in it if he were sent to jail.
Petito, 22, was strangled by Brian in Wyoming and her remains were found Sept. 19 in Grand Teton National Park after her boyfriend killed her on or about Aug. 28 before taking his own life out of guilt.
Roberta Laundrie (pictured) claims she wrote her son Brian Laundrie a letter promising to help him bury a body for his ill-fated road trip Gabby Petito
Petito, 22, was strangled by Laundrie in Wyoming while on a road trip around Aug. 28, 2021. Her remains were found Sept. 19 in Grand Teton National Park
In the letter, Roberta offered to help her son dispose of a corpse as proof of her love for him
She also said she would 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.
A judge has not yet decided whether the letter could be admissible in a civil suit brought by Petito’s family against the laundries over her death.
“I want you to remember that I will always love you and I know that 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.
“No matter what we do, where we go or what we say, we will always love each other.”
“If you’re in jail, I’ll bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to clean up a body, I’ll come over with a shovel and garbage bags.’ The word “bring” is crossed out in the sentence.
She added, “If you fly to the moon, I’ll watch the sky for your return.” If you say you hate my guts, I’ll get new guts.
“Remember that love is a verb and not a noun. It’s not a thing, it’s not words, it’s actions. Watch people’s actions to know if they love you, not their words.
“Therefore I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor ruling spirits, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers above, nor powers below, nothing in all the created world can separate our love.
“Neither hostile powers, nor messengers of heaven, nor princes of the earth. Nothing has the power to separate us…”
Roberta also wrote, “Romans 8:38 (expanded version!) (Nothing can separate us: “No hatred, no hunger, no homelessness, no threats, not even sin, not the conceivable or the unthinkable can come between us.) None time ‘Not miles and miles and miles.’
The letter was recently made public following a hearing in the civil suit brought against the laundries by the Petitos.
But Roberta claimed the letter was written before her son’s trip with Petito and her lawyer issued a statement saying it was “in no way related to Gabby.”
“The letter to Brian was written before Gabby and Brian left my house for their trip. Earlier I filed an affidavit with the court for very limited purposes, but that’s not the whole story,” she said.
She instructed Brian to burn the letter after reading it on the envelope
Roberta claimed the letter was written before her son’s trip with Petito and her lawyer issued a statement saying it was “in no way related to Gabby”
Roberta said in March that she wrote to her son with “quirky” references from books they loved in an attempt to mend their “strained” relationship
“Now that the letter has been shared, I request that you read it in its entirety and understand that the letter contains sentences other than those highlighted by Pat Reilly (the Petitos’ lawyer) for sensationalism and to strengthen his case.”
“I really loved my son and just wanted to show him how much he meant to me and how much I loved him. I am sure people use expressions all the time to express to their loved ones the depth of their love.
“While I chose words that I thought would impress Brian, given our relationship, the letter was in no way related to Gabby.”
Petito was killed by her fiancé Brian in Wyoming during a summer 2021 road trip.
Investigators determined that she died from manual strangulation and that she had been dead for three to four weeks and her death was ruled a homicide.
Brian killed Gabby after she injured herself on their journey and thought she wanted to die, according to his notebook obtained by authorities.
He later committed suicide out of guilt and his skeletal remains were found in a Florida park in October 2021 after a massive manhunt when he disappeared as police investigated Petito’s death.
He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a nature reserve near his parents’ home. His notebook was found along with the suspicious letter from Roberta Laundrie.
Roberta said in March that she wrote to her son with “quirky” references from books they loved in an attempt to mend their “strained” relationship.
She claimed it had nothing to do with Gabby’s murder, saying she wrote the letter months before Brian and Gabby left on their cross-country road trip.
“While I don’t know the exact date I wrote the letter, I do know that I wrote it and gave it to Brian before Brian and Gabby left Florida for New York, which was June 2, 2021,” Roberta said.
In her statement to the court, Roberta admitted that her letter contained references that some would believe were about her son and Gabby, but insisted there is “no connection” between her letter and the deaths.
“While I used words that seem to relate to Brian’s actions and his taking Gabby’s life, I never could have imagined that the events that transpired between Brian and Gabby months later would mirror the words in my letter.
Laundrie later committed suicide out of guilt and his skeletal remains were found in a Florida park in October 2021
Roberta and her husband Chris Laundrie at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on the morning authorities found their son’s skeletal remains
“The words in the letter can never be a commentary on that tragic situation, since they were written so many months before.”
Lawyers for The Laundrie previously filed a motion to prevent Gabby’s parents, Joe Petito and Nichole Schmidt, from making the letter admissible as evidence in court.
The civil trial between the two families will begin in August.
The lawsuit alleges that Laundrie, his parents and their attorney knew Petit was dead at the time of a September 14, 2021 statement released to the media by Steve Bertlino, the family’s attorney.
The statement read in part: “On behalf of the Laundrie family, we hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is reunited with her family.”
It comes after Petito’s parents filed a civil suit against Laundries’ parents late last year and were awarded $3 million.