Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie appear in Aug. 12, 2021 Moab, Utah police body camera videos. Laundrie’s notebook was released on June 24, 2022.
Significant portions of the long-discussed but never-before-seen notebook in which Brian Laundrie confessed to the murder of Gabby Petito have been released.
Petito family attorney Steven Bertolino confirmed the authenticity of the documents to Law&Crime on Friday afternoon.
“Today the Petito family attorney, Patrick Reilly, and myself met with the FBI in Tampa to sort through and take possession of the personal items that belonged to Gabby and Brian. This was a previously agreed upon exchange to enable both the Petitos and the Laundries to receive what belonged to their respective children,” Bertolino said in a statement to Law&Crime. “As part of this return of property in FBI custody I was given Brian’s notebook. I would like to share with the public the note that the FBI alluded to when they said on January 21, 2022 that Brian claimed responsibility for the death of Gabby Petito. Although I have chosen to release this letter as a matter of transparency I will not be commenting further as there are still proceedings pending in Court.”
The proceedings referenced are a Florida civil lawsuit by the Petito family against the Laundrie family. However, a copy of the Laundrie notebook has not been filed in court in connection with that case as of Friday.
The nine-page document contains a direct confession.
“I ended her life,” the notebook reads in part. “I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes I made.”
The hand-scribbled missive also reads, in part, as follows:
She would wake in pain start her whole painful cycle again while 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 extent of gabbys [sic] injurys [sic], 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 paniced [sic], I was in shock. But from the moment I decided, took away her pain, I knew I couldn’t go on without her.
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Petito, 22, and Laundrie, 23, were on a cross-country van trip when Petito vanished in Wyoming.
Laundrie disappeared after returning to Florida without Petito on Sept. 1, 2021.
Petito’s family last heard from her in late August and reported her missing in September; searchers found her body on Sept. 21 in Wyoming’s Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area. Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue later determined that Petito’s cause of death was strangulation and that the manner of her death was homicide.
Laundrie vanished from Florida on Sept. 13. His car — a Ford Mustang convertible — turned up near the vast Carlton Reserve in Sarasota County the next day. The vehicle was situated near the entrance to the Myakkahatchee Environmental Park, which is adjacent to the Reserve.
A massive law enforcement search ensued but initially turned up nothing. When waters receded, several searchers, including Laundrie’s parents, found items of interest and possible human remains. Those remains were Laundrie, authorities eventually confirmed.
The notebook and a backpack were found nearby.
Read the full notebook below:
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