A Florida hearing on whether Brian Laundrie’s parents should hand over a controversial “burn after reading” letter to the parents of his murdered former fiancée Gabby Petito as part of a civil lawsuit stemming from the travel blogger’s 2021 strangling in Wyoming kicked off Wednesday.
Chris and Roberta Laundrie have not been charged with a crime in connection with Petito’s death. But in the civil suit, they asked the court to deny the Petito family’s request for a copy of the letter, which mentions Roberta offering to lend her son a shovel.
Attorneys for Petito’s parents, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, want the letter turned over as part of discovery in the lawsuit, which alleges the Laundries knew about Petito’s death before her remains were found and attempted to help their son flee justice.
After months of disputes over the letter, a Sarasota County judge scheduled the hearing for Wednesday afternoon. Judge Danielle Brewer also heard nearly three hours of arguments for and against the defendants’ motions to dismiss and reserved judgment. She said she would issue orders on those motions later.
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Gabby Petito’s parents Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt appear in a Florida courtroom on Wednesday during a hearing in their civil lawsuit against the parents of their daughter’s suspected killer, Brian Laundrie. (Pool)
“I don’t feel comfortable summarizing the letter,” Pat Reilly, the lawyer for Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, told Fox News Digital earlier this year. “The content is very specific and best read when available. If my belief as to the time it was written is accurate, it shows that at least Roberta Laundrie knew of Gabby’s murder before Gabby’s body was located.”
Roberta’s letter was undated, he added, but “the content of the letter seems to indicate that it was written after Gabby’s death.”
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Laundrie family attorney Steve Bertolino, second from left, appears in court on Wednesday during a hearing on a civil suit from Gabby Petito’s parents against himself and the parents of her suspected killer Brian Laundrie. (Pool)
Attorneys for the Laundrie family have argued it was written months earlier, before the couple left on a cross-country tour of national parks, and unrelated to Petito’s death.
“While I used words that seem to have a connection with Brian’s actions and his taking of Gabby’s life, I never would have fathomed the events that unfolded months later between Brian and Gabby would reflect the words in my letter,” Roberta Laundrie wrote in an affidavit filed in a Sarasota court in March.
She sought to explain the context of the letter, saying it was inspired by children’s books “The Runaway Bunny” and “Little Bear” and a writing exercise book she said Petito gave her son called “Burn After Writing.”
Chris and Roberta Laundrie pause at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park near their Florida home minutes after finding some of their sons belongings at the edge of a clearing in Oct. 20, 2021. Inset: Brian Laundrie speaks to Moab, Utah, police in bodycam video from Aug. 12, 2021. (Moab PD | Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
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“Brian, Gabby and I often joked about this book and the importance of being able to express yourself,” she wrote of the latter.
Embarrassing ideas could be burned away, she argued.
Gabby Petito poses for an Instagram photo in Bryce Canyon National Park. (Family of Gabby Petito)
“In some way, I did not want anyone else to read it as I know it is not the type of letter a mother writes to her adult son and I did not want to embarrass Brian,” she wrote. “That is why I wrote ‘Burn After Reading’ on the envelope, and I knew that Brian would know what that meant. I am now appreciative that he actually kept it.”
Gabby Petito’s parents, their lawyer and attorneys for the Laundrie family and Steve Bertolino appear in court on Wednesday during a hearing in the civil lawsuit against the parents of Gabby Petito’s suspected killer, Brian Laundrie. (Pool)
The lawsuit alleges that Laundrie, his parents and their lawyer knew Petito was dead at the time of a Sept. 14 statement Laundrie attorney Steve Bertolino released to the media, which reads, in part, “On behalf of the Laundrie family it is our hope that the search for Miss Petito is successful and that Miss Petito is re-united with her family.”
Fox News Digital offered the first public glimpse of a confession Brian Laundrie left in a notebook in the Florida swamp where he killed himself in 2021. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Her remains would be discovered on Sept. 19 at a campsite near Jackson, Wyoming. where she was last seen alive. Laundrie allegedly killed her around Aug. 28.
Fox News Digital was first to report that weeks earlier the couple was involved in a public domestic spat in Moab, Utah, in which police were called but ultimately no charges were filed.
Gabby Petito with blood on her face in an Aug. 12, 2021 traffic stop in Moab, Utah. A bystander called police to report a man, later identified as Brian Laundrie, hitting a woman, Petito, in public moments earlier. (Parker & McConkie)
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“Officers conducted an investigation and determined that insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges,” former Moab Police Chief Bret Edge told Fox News Digital at the time.
Fox News Digital was present in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park near the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, when authorities found his remains on Oct. 20, 2021.
Chris and Roberta Laundrie are seen in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park near the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, on the morning police discovered their son’s skeletal remains. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
According to the FBI, Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Near his decomposed remains, they found a handwritten suicide note and confession preserved in a dry bag and other personal affects.
In the note, first published by Fox News Digital, Brian Laundrie declared, “I ended her life.“
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“I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes I made,” he wrote. “I panicked. I was in shock.”
