Court filings reveal that Roberta Laundrie, the mother of Brian Laundrie, wrote in a letter to her son that she loved him so much that she would provide garbage bags and a shovel if he needed to dispose of a body, NBC News reported.
The letter was obtained by Petito’s parents last Wednesday after a judge in Florida denied a request from the Laundries’ attorney to withhold it.
In March of last year, the Petito family sued the Laundries and their former attorney for emotional distress in connection to her 2021 death. Gabby Petito’s body was discovered in Wyoming in September 2021, at least three weeks after she had been strangled to death by her boyfriend Brian Laundrie.
Laundrie’s body was later found on October 20, 2021, in a nature preserve near his parents’ Florida home. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A copy of Roberta Laundrie’s letter had been requested multiple times before the judge ordered its release.
Patrick Reilly, the Petito family’s attorney, shared a copy of the undated letter with NBC News last Thursday. In it, Roberta Laundrie reminded her son that she would always love him no matter what he does.
To prove her unwavering love, Mrs. Laundrie offered a list of hypotheticals including promising to bake a cake with a file inside of it if Brian ever went to jail. She also assured her son that if he needed to “dispose of a body,” she would “show up” with garbage bags and a shovel. She added that if her son told her that he hated her guns, she would “get new guts.”
Laundrie closed the letter by including Romans 8:38, vowing that nothing would ever “get between us.”
The envelope containing the letter was addressed to her son and included a parenthetical “burn after reading.”
In March, an attorney representing the Laundries filed for a protective order for the letter, arguing that Mrs. Laundrie wrote it months before Gabby’s death.
The civil suit is expected to begin next May.
