In letter, Gabby Petito asked boyfriend who later killed her to stop calling her names, FBI documents show
Phil Helsel
June 11, 2024 at 1:05 PM
Gabby Petito wrote a letter to the abusive boyfriend who would later kill her, asking that he stop calling her names, documents released by the FBI in the 2021 murder case show.
Petito in the letter, part of more than 350 pages of documents released by the FBI, tells Brian Laundrie that they are supposed to be a team.
"Just please stop crying and stop calling me names because we're a team and I'm here with you," Petito, who was 22 years old when Laundrie killed her and left her body in Wyoming, said in the handwritten letter. A date for the letter was not evident.
Laundrie, Petito's fiancé, killed her while the two were on a cross-country trip in the summer of 2021, which she documented on YouTube and Instagram.
Attorneys who represented the Petito and Laundrie families in the past could not immediately be reached for comment early Tuesday morning on the documents released by the FBI.
A search and the mystery of what happened to her received widespread attention after Laundrie returned to his Florida home with the van they were in -- without her.
Petito's remains were found in September of that year in Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming.
A month earlier, on Aug. 12, police in Moab, Utah, responded to what a later review found should have been treated as a domestic violence call involving the couple. A person reported an "odd text" on Aug. 27 was the last contact anyone had with her, the documents show.
Laundrie later died by suicide and admitted he was responsible for Petito's death in written statements that were found in a notebook near his body in a Florida nature reserve. He fatally shot himself, the medical examiner ruled. Petito had been strangled, a Wyoming coroner determined.
Other documents in the FBI file, some of which are redacted, include evidence logs and photos of banal items like books, sneakers and backpacks.
Some documents detail reports from people who thought they had seen Petito at gas stations in Utah.
Petito's disappearance got intense media coverage. There was also criticism over the sheer volume of coverage and attention given to a young missing white woman, compared to other missing people.
Petito's parents recently said they want to encourage the public to give more attention to other missing people, whose families also want their loved ones returned.
"There wasn't a demographic or race or country for that matter that didn't help us and so we are going to try to do the same and give that back," Petito's father, Joe Petito, told NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa.
The family is sharing information about other missing people on their website, and are hopeful more awareness is given to others who are missing.