TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A lawyer for Gabby Petito’s parents wants Brian Laundrie’s family attorney to turn over a letter his mother allegedly wrote to her son after Petito was killed in 2021.
Pat Reilly, the attorney who represents Petito’s parents, Joseph Petito, and Nichole Schmidt, said he saw the letter at the FBI regional office in Tampa during a meeting with the Laundrie’s attorney, Steven Bertolino.
“There’s some pretty extreme things she said in there that, without having the letter here to quote it I don’t want to say, but I will simply tell you that there’s some pretty extreme things that were contained within that letter,” Reilly told WFLA’s J.B. Biunno in June. “I will tell you, by the way, that on the envelope that contained the letter, the words ‘burn after you read this’ were written.”
A court filing from December mentioned that in the letter, Roberta had offered to lend her son a shovel to help him bury the body. It appears Reilly wants to use the letter in a deposition. His request for the note was submitted on Tuesday.
Petito and Laundrie set off on a cross-country trip in July 2021. In September, he returned home to Florida without her. Authorities say Petito died about three to four weeks before her body was found on Sept. 18. Her cause of death was strangulation, and the manner of death was homicide. After a weeks-long manhunt, Laundrie was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot at North Port’s Carlton Reserve.
Last March, Petito’s parents filed a civil suit against Christopher and Roberta Laundrie alleging they knew their son killed Gabby, and where her body was located. Their attorney, Bertolino, was added to the suit.
The lawsuit seeks damages of at least $30,000.
