Gabby Petito update: Parents file lawsuit against Laundrie family

Gabby Petito’s mother and father have filed a civil lawsuit in Florida alleging that Brian Laundrie’s mother and father, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, had been conscious that their son killed their daughter and tried to assist him flee justice.

“Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie exhibited excessive and outrageous conduct which constitutes habits, underneath the circumstances, which works past all potential bounds of decency and is considered surprising, atrocious, and totally insupportable in a civilized neighborhood,” the lawsuit alleges. “As a direct and proximate results of the willfulness and maliciousness of Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt had been induced to undergo ache and struggling, psychological anguish, inconvenience, lack of capability for enjoyment of life skilled previously and to be skilled sooner or later.”

In early July, Petito, 22, and Laundrie, 23, left New York on a cross-country highway journey in Petito’s white Ford Transit van. They made it so far as Jackson Wyoming by late August. By Sept. 1, Laundrie pulled into his mother and father’ driveway in North Port, Florida, driving her van with Petito nowhere to be discovered.

“It’s believed that on August 27, 2021, Brian Laundrie murdered Gabrielle Petito,” the civil grievance reads.

BRIAN LAUNDRIE NOTEBOOK: GABBY PETITO’S KILLER CONFESSED IN WRITING BEFORE SUICIDE, FBI SAYS

Laundrie then despatched phony textual content messages between his cell and Petito’s “in an effort to cover the actual fact” that she was useless, in keeping with court docket paperwork and the FBI.

The grievance alleges that Laundrie confessed to his mother and father on Aug. 28 and that the Laundries employed lawyer Steve Bertolino, a longtime pal, on Sept. 2.

Bertolino informed Fox Information Digital Friday he has represented the Laundrie household “for a few years” and known as the civil lawsuit “baseless.”

Brian Laundrie as seen in bodycam footage launched by the Moab Police Division in Utah.
(Moab PD)

“As I’ve maintained over the past a number of months, the Laundrie‘s haven’t publicly commented at my course which is their proper underneath the legislation,” he mentioned. “Assuming every little thing the Petitos allege of their lawsuit is true, which we deny, this lawsuit doesn’t change the truth that the Laundries had no obligation to talk to Legislation Enforcement or any third-party together with the Petito household.  This basic authorized precept renders the Petito’s claims to be baseless underneath the legislation.”

GABBY PETITO: FBI CLOSES HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION AS IT REVEALS BRIAN LAUNDRIE’S NOTEBOOK CONFESSION

After Laundrie returned to his mother and father’ house on Sept. 1, the household mentioned nothing publicly about Petito’s dying. The household went tenting at Fort DeSoto Park, south of St. Petersburg, between Sept. 6 and eight. Petito’s mom reported her lacking to police in her New York hometown on Sept. 11.

Reporters witnessed a rainbow overhead simply moments after authorities eliminated Gabby Petito’s stays from a campsite in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton Nationwide Forest.
(Audrey Conklin/Fox Information Digital)

That was a day after Roberta Laundrie allegedly blocked Nichole Schmidt, Petito’s mom, on her cellphone and on Fb, in keeping with the lawsuit.

BRIAN LAUNDRIE FOUND: PARENTS MAY HAVE JUST MISSED UNCOVERING REMAINS THEMSELVES

“A traditional mom and father would, after having the lady residing with them for that size of time, would clearly ask the query, the place is she?” mentioned John Kelly, a prison profiler who has been following the case. “And that’s the place it will get actual bizarre. Would he inform them that he killed her? Would he inform them that one thing occurred to her? Would he inform them that she ran off?”

The lawsuit additionally alleges that in this time, the mother and father had been making an attempt to rearrange a manner for his or her son to flee the nation. He left their house within the days following the lacking individual report and was in the end discovered useless of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a swampy park close by in late October. Fox Information Digital was the one media current within the reserve with Laundrie’s mother and father and two members of legislation enforcement on the time.

His physique had been there for weeks after floodwaters difficult a large FBI-led search.

GABBY PETITO HOMICIDE: TIMELINE OF DISAPPEARANCE WITH BRIAN LAUNDRIE

In his last phrases, Laundrie admitted to killing his former fiancée Petito in a distant Wyoming campground, in keeping with the FBI, primarily based on entries investigators discovered within the pocket book recovered close to his skeletal stays in a Florida swamp in October. They didn’t describe the contents of the pocket book till three months later.

The FBI additionally on the time introduced beforehand undisclosed particulars about her dying, which a Wyoming health worker dominated a murder by guide strangulation final fall. She had suffered blunt power trauma to the pinnacle and neck.

Courtroom paperwork present the Petito and Schmidt households are in search of greater than $100,000 in damages for alleged negligence, ache and struggling. They’re demanding a jury trial.

Fox Information’ Laura Ingle, Heather Lacy and Sarah Rumpf contributed to this report.