Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

Post by Jersey Girl »

Well, as I've said before with regard to true crime. It's not over until it's over. And even then, it's not over.

Gabby Petito’s family: Brian Laundrie’s parents knew about daughter’s murder, lawsuit claims


NORTH PORT, Fla. (WFLA) — Gabby Petito’s family filed a lawsuit against the parents of Brian Laundrie this week, accusing the Laundrie family of knowing their son murdered 22-year-old Petito and claiming they were planning to help him leave the country.

Petito’s father, Joseph Petito, and mother, Nichole Schmidt, filed the civil lawsuit against Chris and Roberta Laundrie on Thursday, March 10, according to court documents obtained by WFLA.com. The new documents contain several bombshell allegations that were not previously mentioned by the FBI, the lead investigating agency on the Petito and Laundrie case.

According to the documents, it’s believed Petito died on Aug. 27 at the hands of Laundrie. The FBI said last month that Laundrie claimed responsibility for Petito’s death in a written journal entry that was found with his remains in Sarasota County late last year.
While a coroner determined Petito’s cause of death was homicide by manual strangulation, the civil lawsuit claims she also suffered blunt force injuries to the head and neck.

In the new lawsuit, Petito’s parents allege that Laundrie told his parents what happened “on or about” Aug. 28.

“It is believed, and therefore averred that… Brian Laundrie advised his parents, Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie, that he had murdered Gabrielle Petito,” the lawsuit states. “On that same date, Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie spoke with Attorney Steve Bertolino, and sent him a retainer on Sept. 2, 2021.”

The lawsuit says Laundrie sent text messages back and forth between his phone and Petito’s phone after her death “in an effort to hide the fact that she was deceased.” The suit also specifically mentions a text Laundrie allegedly sent to Schmidt on Aug. 27 that referred to Petito’s grandfather by his first name – Stan. Petito’s mother had previously said that final text message raised red flags to her because Petito never called her grandfather by his first name. The suit claims Laundrie then sent an additional text from Petito’s phone on Aug. 30 to Schmidt saying there was no service in Yosemite Park “in an effort to deceive” her into believing her daughter was still alive.
The suit then lays out some of what happened in the days after Petito’s death, before an official missing person alert went out. The Petito family says there was no contact between the two families after Brian Laundrie returned home to North Port alone driving Petito’s van on Sept. 1. It also mentions the vacation the Laundries took to Fort DeSoto Park “while Gabrielle Petito’s family was suffering.”

Once the official search for Petito was underway, before her remains were found, the lawsuit says the Laundrie family refused to respond to questions from law enforcement and Petito’s family. The suit claims Roberta Laundrie blocked Schmidt’s phone number and blocked her on Facebook around the time Petito was reported missing.

According to the documents, Petito’s parents also believe Laundrie’s parents were planning to help their son leave the United States.

“While Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt were desperately searching for information concerning their daughter, Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie were keeping the whereabouts of Brian Laundrie secret, and it is believed were making arrangements for him to leave the country.”


In the lawsuit, Petito and Schmidt accuse the Laundrie family of acting “with malice or great indifference to the rights of” Petito’s family.
“Christopher and Roberta Laundrie exhibited extreme and outrageous conduct which constitutes behavior, under the circumstances, which goes beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as shocking, atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the lawsuit says.

Petito and Schmidt are seeking damages of at least $100,000, according to the documents filed this week, stating that they suffered pain and mental anguish as a result of the “willfulness and maliciousness” of the Laundries.

When asked by WFLA.com about the lawsuit, the Laundries’ attorney said, “no comment.”

Petito’s mother also had no comment, saying that “the claim speaks for itself.”
https://www.wfla.com/news/sarasota-coun ... it-claims/
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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It's never over.

Petito v. Laundrie: First Pre-Trial Hearing in Lawsuit Filed by Gabby Petito's Parents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCpiRum-9Lk
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Brian Laundrie's Journal has been released. The confession:

“Gabby, I wish I was right at your side, I wish I could be talking to you right now. I’d be going through every memory we made, getting even more excited for the future. But [we] lost our future. I can’t [live] without you. I’ve lost every day we [could’ve] spent together, every holiday. I’ll never get to play with [illegible] again. Never go hiking with TJ. I loved you more than anything. I can’t bear to look at our photos, to recall great times because it is why I cannot go on. When I close my eyes, I will think of laughing on the roof of the van, falling asleep to the sight of [illegible] at the crystal geyser. I will always love you.”

“If you were reading Gabs’ journal, looking at photos from our life together, flipping through old cards you wouldn’t want to live a day without her. Knowing that everyday you’ll wake up without her, you wouldn’t want to wake up. I’m sorry to everyone this will affect, Gabby was the love of my life, but I know [adored] by many. I’m so very sorry to her family because I love them. I’d [consider] her younger siblings my best of friends… I am sorry to my family, this [is] a shock to them as well a terrible grief.”

“They loved as much, if not more than me. A new daughter to my mother, an aunt to my nephews. Please do not make this harder for them, this [occurred] as an unexpected tragedy. Rushing back to our car trying to cross the streams of [illegible] before it got too dark to see, too cold. I hear a splash and a scream. I could barely see. I couldn’t find her for a moment, shouted her name. I found her breathing heavily, gasping [illegible.] She was freezing cold. [Illegible] the blazing hot national parks in Utah.”

“The temperature had dropped to freezing and she was soaking wet. I carried her as far as I could from the stream toward the car, stumbling, exhausted in shock, when my [illegible] and knew I couldn’t safely carry her. I started a fire and spooned her as close to the heat. She was so thin, had already been freezing too long. I couldn’t at the time realize that I should’ve started a fire first but I wanted her out of the cold back to the car. From where I started the fire I had no idea how far the car might be, only knew it was across the creek.”

“When I pulled Gabby out of the water, she couldn’t tell me what hurt. She had a small [bump] on her forehead that [eventually] got larger. Her feet hurt, her [wrist] hurt but she was freezing, shaking violently. While carrying her she continually made sounds of pain. Laying next to her she said little, [lapsing] between violent shakes, gasping in pain, begging for an end to her pain. She would fall asleep and I would shake her awake, fearing she shouldn’t close her eyes if she had a concussion.”

“She would wake in pain, start her whole painful cycle again [illegible] furious that I was the one waking her. She wouldn’t let me try to cross the creek, thought like me that the fire would go out in her sleep and she’d freeze. I don’t know the extend of Gabby’s injuries, only that she was in extreme pain. I ended her life, I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted but I see now all the mistakes I made. I panicked, I was in shock. But from the moment I decided, took away her pain, I knew I couldn’t go on without her.”

“I rushed home to spend any time I had left with my family. I wanted to drive north and let James or TJ kill me but I wouldn’t want them to spend time in jail over my mistake, even though I’m sure they would have liked to. I am ending my life not because of a fear of punishment but rather because I can’t stand to live another day without her. I’ve lost our whole future together, every moment we could have [shared.] I’m sorry for everyone’s loss. Please do not make life harder for my family, they lost a son and a daughter. The most wonderful girl in the world. Gabby I’m sorry.”


“I have killed myself by this creek in the hopes that animals may tear me apart. That it may make some of her family happy.”

“Please pick up all of my things. Gabby hated people who litter.”


https://www.wfla.com/news/sarasota-coun ... by-petito/
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Finally. My favorite true crime youtuber has uploaded commentary on both the Brian Laundrie "confession" and the upcoming lawsuit. You can NOT beat Stephanie Harlowe for true crime. She provided some commentary that opened my eyes to issues that I hadn't previously considered. I knew the information but I didn't connect the dots the way she did.

She's like a sickness in my brain... 8-)

Coffee and Crime Time: Brian Laundrie and His "Confession"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zYYdWgLB5g

Coffee and Crime Time: The Laundrie's And The Lawsuit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GYsJCi1VgQ
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Jersey Girl wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 7:24 am
Finally. My favorite true crime youtuber has uploaded commentary on both the Brian Laundrie "confession" and the upcoming lawsuit. You can NOT beat Stephanie Harlowe for true crime. She provided some commentary that opened my eyes to issues that I hadn't previously considered. I knew the information but I didn't connect the dots the way she did.

She's like a sickness in my brain... 8-)

Coffee and Crime Time: Brian Laundrie and His "Confession"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zYYdWgLB5g

Coffee and Crime Time: The Laundrie's And The Lawsuit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GYsJCi1VgQ
I couldn't resist taking a peek at the sickness in your brain, and ended up watching/listening to both. I can see why true crime folks like her. She gives her opinions, but is pretty clear when she is doing so. She clearly knows the facts, and that gives her an ability to spot things in people's stories that don't fit with the other evidence. She clearly sees Brian through the lens of her own personal experience, but I think that comes through as well.

I'll confess that I'd never watched the video of the police stop. That was very hard to watch -- such a classic example of how domestic violence victims internalize the blame for their partner's behavior. I suspect that encounter will haunt them for years.

I've seen suits like the civil suit before. The last tort case I defended was the parents of a young woman who was killed by a serial killer. They sued the owners of the home that she was renting a basement apartment from, claiming that the security was inadequate. The problem was there was no evidence of forced entry and the security expert I retained could not find anyway that someone could have entered by any means other than being let in the door without leaving evidence. The lawyer that represented the parents was a relative of some kind.

Her killer had been tried and convicted of three murders, including hers. I ordered and read the transcript from his criminal trial. At trial, the prosecution presented evidence in form of testimony from the victim's co-workers that she and the killer knew each other -- that they had gone out to lunch together once or twice. That explained how he was able to get into her apartment -- he knocked on the door and, because she knew him, she let him in. The parents had been so grief stricken that they had not attended the trial and so did was unaware of this testimony.

The adjuster for the insurance company that was paying my bills really wanted to try the case. But my clients were devastated. They really liked the victim, and the wife had found her body. They were traumatized by the idea that someone was trying to hold them responsible for the actions of a serial killer.

To defend the case, I was looking at essentially having to retry the murder case. It was going to require a ton of discovery in the form of taking depositions of witnesses. So, before the discovery got rolling, I talked the adjuster into making a cost of defense settlement offer, which was to expire when the first deposition was scheduled to take place (9:00 a.m. on a Monday). The Friday before the first deposition, I had a phone call with the parents' lawyer. He was telling me his clients were not inclined to take the offer. I finally asked him why he thought he had a case against my clients. He went on about his security expert, whose report talked about alleged deficiencies in the apartment's security but hadn't offered an opinion about how the murderer got into the apartment. He then asked me why I was taking depositions of several witnesses. I was surprised that he didn't know who they were, but told him they were the witnesses who would establish that the killer and victim had known each other. He denied that was true and demanded to know why I was saying that. I told him it was in the trial transcript. He was dead quiet. I asked him "you read the transcript, right?" He hadn't, and started to get in my face about why I hadn't given him a copy. I told him that he hadn't served a discovery request for it and that I'd assumed he'd read the transcript before he filed the complaint. Then I just went off on him -- the only time in my career I lost my temper at another lawyer. He'd filed this lawsuit without doing any homework into what happened, traumatizing my clients over a period of months. And now her parents were going to find out for the first time what had actually happened.

Monday morning at 9:00, a messenger arrived with a letter accepting the offer. My clients were happy and relieved. I was happy for them and relieved because I was not going to have to drag her parents through the fact that the victim's death wasn't someone else's fault -- their daughter had the bad luck to be befriended by a serial killer.

Win or lose, the Petito's lawsuit isn't going to help them heal. It will just keep the wounds open. And their wounds must be horrific.
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Bold mine.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Sep 13, 2022 10:53 pm

I couldn't resist taking a peek at the sickness in your brain, and ended up watching/listening to both.
There's a reason she has 742K subscribers. 8-)
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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I followed this case pretty closely, mostly because at the time this was going on, my oldest son, who had a remote job due to covid, was spending his first year out of college on the road, in utah, nevada, washington, and california, skiing and exploring. And also working wirelessly for a hefty salary. :roll: what a life, right?

Most of the time he had an air bnb with friends, but they also spent a fair amount of time living the "van life" on the road. if you recall, the two newly married women in Moab, living out of their van, were also killed during this time. I was a wreck trying to keep tabs on my kid while letting him do his thing. (the first HOUR he was in utah, a car crashed in front of him forcing him off the I-15 and destroying two tires.)

Consequently I followed this case very closely.

i would be interested in your opinion as a lawyer, as it seems to me that the FBI has a great deal of additional information that it seems won't be publicly available unless it is part of a deposition in a court case, putting the information into the public realm. That was my impression as to why the Petito's are bringing this suit--not for the money but just to bring more information to light. Is that possible?
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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RI not blowing off the remainder of your comments. I want to watch that second video again so I can pinpoint what she said that made my antenna go up on the timeline before commenting further.
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Marcus just one thing about the lawsuit. There exists a letter written by Brian's mother with various "offers" made to him within and a note written on the envelope with instructions that he burn it after he read it. It exists. I don't who has possession of that, the FBI or the Laundrie attorney? Someone has it and it exists. If they bring out that letter it might help to forward their case.

I'm not prepared atm to make many more comments on this. I will be soon. I'll try to find out who has possession of that letter.
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Re: Anyone following the Gabby Petito case? (Breaking)

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Marcus here is the statement about the burn letter.

https://youtu.be/_GYsJCi1VgQ?t=1901
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