In the wake of Gabby Petito’s tragic murder, newly released court documents reveal how Brian Laundrie repeatedly called his parents, who insist they were never informed of Petito’s death despite their son’s increasingly erratic behavior.
The revelations come from depositions taken for the upcoming civil trial in May, involving Petito’s parents, Joe Petito and Nichole Schmidt, and the Laundries, Christopher and Roberta Laundrie.
The depositions, spanning more than 700 pages, were conducted in October 2023.
The Laundries acknowledge being told that ‘Gabby’s gone’ by Brian on August 29, 2021, two days after Petito is believed to have been murdered.
Chris and Roberta have always denied wrongdoing. The Petito family is suing them for damages to be determined by a jury trial.
Transcripts of Christopher and Roberta Laundrie’s depositions reveal details about the moment their son Brian broke the news of Gabby Petito’s death in 2021
Christopher Laundrie recalled the moment Brian called him begging for help and requesting a lawyer after admitting Gabby was ‘gone’
They say the Laundries family inflicted emotional suffering and anguish by hiding the truth about their daughter’s murder to protect her killer, their son.
However, the Laundries claim they were never informed of Petito’s death, remaining under the impression that she had simply disappeared.
Chris Laundrie, Brian’s father, recounted the frantic call he received from Brian.
Despite Brian’s erratic behavior, including a controversial party following a shooting incident and then moving his belongings to a storage unit in Florida a week before the cross-country trip with Gabby, the Laundries say they never suspected anything was amiss.
Brian then returned to Florida alone to empty the storage unit, explaining it as a cost-saving measure.
Joe Petito expressed his dissatisfaction with the North Port Police Department’s handling of the investigation, noting how Brian refused to talk to investigators and invoked his Fifth Amendment right.
The depositions further reveal Brian’s plan to work on a pumpkin farm in Oregon with Gabby, indicating their intention to continue their trip.
The Petito family are seeking damages of at least $100,000 and hope to hold the Laundries accountable for their actions and choices.
The depositions underscore the many complexities and unresolved questions surrounding the high-profile case, offering a glimpse into the multifaceted narrative of the events leading up to Gabby Petito’s death.
Amid the barrage during those two days, calls were made from Christopher and Roberta Laundrie to their family lawyer Steve Bertolino in Long Island who was retained on September 2 and instructed the pair to say nothing
Gabby’s remains were discovered in an undeveloped camping area in Grand Teton National Forest in Wyoming on September 19 2021
Chris Laundrie described the day everything – in his own words – ‘hit the fan’ on August 29, 2021 when his son called him in desperation two days after murdering ‘van life’ girl Gabby on their road trip from Florida to Utah and Wyoming.
Killer Brian could not be calmed down during the call and begged his father to ‘just help me’, eventually becoming so ‘frantic’ that he hung up, according to transcripts.
The 66-year-old dad said in a deposition for the civil case due for trial in Sarasota, Florida: ‘I asked him, you know, how is he doing, and he – he was not calm and he got very excited and told me things had – you know, ‘Gabby’s gone’ and he got very frantic.
‘Everything was frantic and quick. So you know, Gabby’s gone…’
Asked by the Petito family attorney Pat Reilly what that meant, the father replied: ‘I have no idea what he meant.
‘He was very panicked and he said he didn’t know what to do. He said, you know, ‘Can you help me,’ … and he might need a lawyer.
‘And I would – I asked him why he wouldn’t tell me. He was very frantic. Everything was frantic and I started to not really comprehend, and then he said just, you know, ‘Can you help me?’.
‘And I said, ‘Okay. I’ll help you’. And I calmed him down and… it was all mumbled and I still don’t remember everything that happened, but, you know, he said he needed help and to get an attorney.
‘And I told him, ‘Yeah, I’ll help you. I’ll call Steve Bertolino, and just stay put.’
Apparently referring to what ‘gone’ meant, Christopher said: ‘And then I asked him again, and he just said , ‘Just help me’.
‘And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to, so stay calm. Stay put’. And he hung up…
‘All I know is what he told me and it was very quick and very, very nervous and very scattered… I tried to calm him down. He would not calm down and he hung up the phone on me…
‘I couldn’t get any more information from him.’
Asked by Reilly if he believed ‘gone’ meant ‘dead’, Christopher refused to concede that saying: ‘I didn’t believe that, no.’
Reilly asked: ‘What other possible interpretation could there be of that?’
The father said: ‘I don’t know… I can guess a million things for you.’
DailyMail.com has already exclusively revealed that 23-year-old killer Laundrie had a ‘flurry’ of up to 20 calls with his parents in two days from August 29 that year – but just around five in the two months before that, while the young couple were on their cross-country trip.
Nearly three weeks later, on September 19, 22-year-old Gabby’s remains were discovered in an undeveloped camping area in Grand Teton National Forest in Wyoming.
It would later be revealed that Laundrie had strangled her before driving back to his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, on September 1 in her 2012 white Ford Transit van. The FBI believe the date he killed her was August 27.
He then vanished when police began investigating his fiancée’s disappearance – before killing himself with a gunshot to the head in an alligator-infested swamp near his home and being discovered weeks later.
Gabby’s parents Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt are suing the Laundries for pain and emotional distress, claiming the couple intentionally withheld information about their daughter’s death.
Attorney Steve Bertolino is also being sued for the same reason in the action set for trial in May.
The frantic phonecall between Chris and his son Brian is detailed in a court deposition
The case is focused on a statement he put out on September 14, 2021 for the couple, which said: ‘On behalf of the family it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is reunited with her family.’
The ‘gone’ call was made to mother Roberta’s phone at 4pm and lasted 55 minutes, DailyMail.com has previously revealed.
But the confession was made while Brian was speaking to his father. There was another call at 9.20pm that lasted 22 minutes, according to phone records.
Roberta, 66, said in her deposition that she ‘loved’ Gabby – and admitted that ‘gone’ might have indicated that her future daughter-in-law may have been murdered and that was why Brian needed a lawyer.
Reilly posed the question: ‘The fact that maybe he murdered her went through your mind, didn’t it?’
Roberta replied: ‘I don’t know if I even wanted to – I think I was so panicky, it might have gone through my mind. I can’t recall what I was thinking…
Gabby, who had been documenting the couple’s ‘van life’ journey after embarking on a cross-country trip in June 2021, was reported missing after Brian returned to his parents’ home alone on September 1
Petito, 22, was strangled on a road trip with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in Wyoming 2021
Brian Laundrie placed a ‘flurry’ of phone calls to his parents in the days after murdering girlfriend Gabby Petito during the couple’s cross-country road trip
Gabrielle Petito, 22, is seen with boyfriend Brian Laundrie. His posting was captioned: ‘Never got around to posting these! I’d die just to watch all of our memories on repeat, never loved anyone as much as this girl’
Gabby Petito is seen in shots from her Instagram page, pictured here at Mystic Hot Springs, in northeastern Utah
Gabby Petito is seen in shots from her Instagram page with Brian Laundrie
‘I was panicking and thinking a lot of thoughts… it probably went through my mind.’
Before that, she said: ‘A lot of things crossed my mind and one of them was that maybe they got in a fight and maybe she’s going to press charges against him for maybe he hit her or something.’
Chris and Roberta say they were never told anything other than ‘Gabby’s gone’ and because they say Gabby was known to ‘disappear’ for periods of time, they did not believe Gabby had been murdered.
‘Where did you think—what did you think ‘gone’ meant?’ Chris was asked.
‘I didn’t even know what to think at the moment, you know, at all, so that’s that,’ he responded.
‘Okay. Well, if he told you that she was gone, but she just walked away, would he have been frantic, do you think?’, they were asked.
‘Alls I know is what he told me and it was very quick and very, very nervous and very scattered, so I don’t remember everything he said, but he said he needed help, and I calmed—I tried to calm him down. He would not calm down and he hung up the phone on me,’ Chris recalled.
Chris and Roberta said did not consider contacting Gabby’s parents after learning Gabby was ‘gone.’
‘I didn’t [call Gabby’s parents], no, because I had no reason to—at that very moment to think anything was – was going on. Gabby took off and did things that I—you know, she—on her own free will, so I had no idea what—where she was,’ Chris said.
Roberta said she also spoke to Brian on August 29th in a call that appears to have been before the killer’s veiled confession.
‘At the very tail of that conversation with him where everything seemed fine, as we were saying goodbye he all of a sudden completely changed and he sounded very upset, and his voice was very upset and I didn’t know why and I didn’t want to push him – so we just said goodbye.’
She said she didn’t believe she’d spoken with her son ‘all summer’ before the panic call with Christopher – and had no idea of the incident in Moab, Utah, on August 12 where police were called to a domestic violence incident between the young couple until after Brian was dead.
When Brian told his parents he was returning alone to the North Port house, where he and Gabby lived with the Laundries, Roberta said the van-life girl ‘could take care of herself… and I was just concerned about my son at the time’.
After Laundrie got back ‘we mostly stayed home, prepared meals, went out to dinner, watched TV. Not much,’ she said.
Nichole Schmidt, mother of Gabby Petito, is seen speaking alongside Gabby’s father, Joseph Petito (second from left) her stepmom Tara Petito (far left) and her stepfather Jim Schmidt (far right) during a news conference in September 2021
Joseph Petito, the father of Gabby Petito, is seen in September 2021
Nichole Schmidt holds up a photo of her daughter, Gabby Petito during a press conference held days before her remains were found
‘We did normal things’, also confirming they went camping with Brian at Fort DeSoto, Florida.
‘He didn’t tell you that there had been a police incident between he and Gabby just days before?’
‘No,’ Chris said.
‘Did he have any bruising on him that you’re aware of?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know why he came alone?’
‘I have—I don’t know why he came alone. I thought he just wanted to come and see us and say hello,’ Chris explained.
‘Did you ask him why Gabby didn’t come home with him?’
‘It sounded as if she wanted time to make her website, so that was the only reason, the only reason that he said. She couldn’t do it while she was there. I don’t know,’ Chris said.
During his trip back home, Brian was with his parents for five days in North Port while Gabby was in a Utah hotel.
During one conversation Chris told how Brian said he and Gabby had plans to work on a pumpkin farm in Oregon.
‘When he came home, did you have any concerns about him and continuing the trip?’ Chris was asked.
‘No, no, and he told us again that they were going to Oregon to maybe work in a pumpkin place that they’d get—learn farming and help with that season of pumpkins. That’s it. That’s what he told me.’
Christopher and Roberts Laundrie (pictured at their Florida home in September 2021) ‘did everything the right way, and they have no regrets’ their lawyer, Steve Bertolino said
Father of Brian Laundrie , Christopher Laundrie fills up with gas near their home
The suit against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie charges the couple knew their son murdered Petito and refused to tell her parents the location of the girl’s remains
Gabby’s parents, mom Nichole Schmidt and dad Joseph Petito, were seen sitting together during testimony in the civil case against the two families in October
Of her son’s demeanor, Roberta added: ‘I didn’t see him grieving. He was, I guess, worried and concerned, and I know he was talking to Steven (Bertolino) on the phone. Steven Bertolino told us just to keep him close and keep him calm, and that’s what we did… and don’t talk to him about anything.’
Of Roberta’s now infamous ‘burn after reading’ letter to her son – eventually allowed into evidence after a battle to exclude it – the mom said it was a jokey note to remind him of her love.
The undated missive said: ‘I just want you to know I will always love you and you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you, nothing will or ever divide us no matter what we do, or where we go or what we say – we will always love each other.
‘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.’
The letter, which does not mention Gabby, was in an envelope titled: Brian Christopher Laundrie (burn after reading).
Roberta said it was written after she learned of the road trip which began in June but before the couple left.
She admitted she was upset the pair was going and not establishing more roots with her and Christopher in Florida.
‘I just wanted to reassure him that I loved him, no matter what,’ she said in the deposition, taken in October 2023.
‘No matter if he moved away, if he decided to stay out west, whatever he did… I would always love him.’
She said she wrote ‘burn after reading’ on the envelope because Gabby had bought Brian a book titled Burn After Writing ‘ so it was like a little joke I knew he would get’. She added: ‘And I did want him to get rid of it. Not burn it. But throw it out so nobody could read it. It’s an embarrassing note.’
Attorney Reilly asked: ‘OK, nothing including murder would make you stop loving him, correct?’
Roberta: ‘Oh, I would always love him.’
At the time of the investigation it was revealed cops had pulled the couple over in Utah on a domestic violence call after Gabby and Brian had a physical altercation
Brian Laundrie is seen talking to a police officer after police pulled over the van he was traveling in with his girlfriend, Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Petito, near the entrance to Arches National Park in Utah in August 2021
A selfie shared by the family’s attorneys shows Gabby’s beaten and bruised face moments before Utah traffic stop
Reilly has previously revealed to DailyMail.com why Gabby’s parents are putting themselves through more anguish with this case. He said: ‘They want to know what Christopher and Roberta know, what they knew, what they held back.
‘And this sounds simplistic, they want justice. They want the Laundries to pay for what they’ve done.’
Gabby’s father Joe, who lives in Vero Beach, Florida, with Gabby’s stepmom Tara, and Nichole, who lives on Long Island with husband Jim Schmidt, still reel with ongoing emotions.
‘They’ve been strong since this case was filed in 2022. But there have been moments when they’ve cried and there have been moments when they’ve been angry,’ Reilly told DaklyMail.com.
‘They’ve gone through everything by reliving what happened. But their resolve is to keep moving forward.’
Gabby’s parents agreed a $3million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit against the estate of Brian Laundrie in November 2022.
The killer’s assets are believed to have been in the five figures.
Any award if they win the latest case will also be destined for the Gabby Petito Foundation, set up to support locating missing people and help organizations aiding domestic violence survivors.