Chilling police cam footage, an alarming impersonation, and dark confessions are all among the disturbing details revealed about Brian Laundrie in the wake of the disappearance and death of Gabby Petito.
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00:00Chilling police cam footage, an alarming impersonation, and dark confessions are all
00:05among the disturbing details revealed about Brian Laundrie in the wake of the disappearance
00:09and death of Gabby Petito.
00:11The case of Brian Laundrie and his fiancée Gabby Petito captivated and horrified the
00:15nation when their deadly van life vacation became headline news in the summer of 2021.
00:20The couple shared ample details of their seemingly happy relationship and travels online, but
00:25then their trip of a lifetime turned into a horrifying case that rocked the nation.
00:29When Laundrie returned to his parents' home in September, Petito was nowhere to be seen.
00:34After a family filed a police report, Laundrie himself then went missing.
00:37On September 19, Petito's remains were discovered in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest,
00:43while Laundrie's were later found submerged in a South Florida preserve on October 20.
00:47On August 12, 2021, police officers in Moab, Utah, responded to a domestic incident between
00:53Petito and Laundrie.
00:54The police reports and video footage of the incident offered an eerie insight into their
00:58relationship.
00:59An eyewitness told a 911 operator that a man, Laundrie, slapped a woman, Petito, twice as
01:04they stood on the sidewalk before driving away.
01:07The police caught up to the vehicle and found Petito in tears.
01:10She told the officer that she was struggling with her obsessive-compulsive disorder and
01:13that she had panicked when Laundrie wouldn't let her back into the van.
01:16He kept telling me to shut up.
01:18The officer convinced the couple to spend the night apart, cooling off.
01:22Though their social media would go on to paint a picture of an ideal vacation, they continued
01:26to argue violently, with another incident that involved Laundrie yelling at staff in
01:29a Wyoming restaurant on August 27, and Petito apologizing to everyone in tears.
01:35When Petito's remains were discovered in September 2021, Laundrie was still missing.
01:41Observers speculated wildly about whether he was alive or dead, and the degree to which
01:44he was responsible for Petito's disappearance.
01:47While trying to locate Laundrie, the FBI released a statement confirming that they had uncovered
01:52a notebook alongside Petito's remains.
01:53It was soon reported that the notebook contained entries from Laundrie concerning the events
01:57that had transpired between him and his fiancée, which were later published by the Laundrie
02:01family's attorney.
02:02In one entry, Laundrie described a disturbing scene in which Petito ended up freezing and
02:07injured in a creek, with a wound on her forehead and a possible concussion.
02:11He claimed that he carried her, but couldn't make it back to their van.
02:13Instead, he built a fire and attempted to warm her up with his body heat as she drifted
02:17in and out of consciousness, as a result of what he seemed to believe was hypothermia.
02:22The biggest bombshell revelation in Brian Laundrie's notebook was undoubtedly his confession,
02:26as he wrote,
02:27"...I ended her life."
02:29However, Laundrie also claimed that the killing wasn't prompted by anger, nor did it take
02:33place in a heated argument.
02:34Instead, he stated that he chose to end Petito's life due to the severity of her injuries,
02:39despite offering only a vague outline about how she became injured in the first place.
02:43As he put it,
02:44"...I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes
02:48I made.
02:49I panicked.
02:50I was in shock.
02:51But, from the moment I decided, took away her pain, I knew I couldn't go on without
02:55her."
02:56Laundrie also wrote that after killing Petito, he returned home to spend some final time
02:59with his family before leaving to end his own life.
03:02As he detailed,
03:03"...I have killed myself by this creek in the hopes that animals may tear me apart,
03:07that it may make some of her family happy.
03:09Please pick up all of my things.
03:10Gabby hated people who litter."
03:12"...The journal reveals a lot about what Brian Laundrie's intent was."
03:18Despite Laundrie's confession, experts were skeptical at his attempts to portray the slain
03:22as merciful.
03:24After the discovery of Gabby Petito's remains, a Teton County coroner's office concluded
03:28that she died of multiple blunt force head injuries and manual strangulation, and that
03:32she'd been killed weeks before her body was discovered.
03:35It was also now known that Brian Laundrie returned to his parents' home for about two
03:39weeks before abruptly disappearing.
03:41It was around this time that he took disturbing steps to convince the world his fiancée was
03:45still alive.
03:46As the FBI later revealed, he remained in possession of Petito's cell phone after her
03:50death and sent multiple text messages to himself and to Petito's family members.
03:54In one of those messages, he pretended to be Petito, writing to her mother, Nicole Schmidt,
03:58"...Can you help Stan?
03:59I just keep getting his voicemails and missed calls."
04:02The message alarmed Schmidt, as Petito never called her grandfather Stan by his first name.
04:07One final document that has made headlines in the years since Petito's disappearance
04:11was a letter written by Laundrie's mother, Roberta, to her son.
04:14It was recovered from his backpack when his remains were discovered in October 2021, and
04:18it included several alarming references to murder.
04:22The letter, which is marked burn after reading, includes Roberta telling her son that she
04:25would be willing to bring a shovel to help him bury a body, or bake a cake containing
04:29a shiv if he ever wound up in prison.
04:31Roberta has claimed that it was written before Petito and Laundrie set off on their ill-fated
04:35trip, and that the dark imagery was purely an attempt to convey the unconditional nature
04:39of her love for her son.
04:41But Gabby Petito's family sees things a little differently.
04:44In fact, they filed a lawsuit against the Laundries for emotional distress.
04:48They claimed that his parents were aware of Petito's death upon Brian's return home, but
04:52did nothing to raise any alarms.
04:54They contend that the letter contains direct references to the killing, and it stood to
04:57become a key piece of evidence in a civil trial between the two families.
05:01Ultimately, though, in February 2024, Petito's parents and the Laundries reached a settlement
05:05in which the case would no longer move forward.