Brian Laundrie’s Gabby Petito Confession: Experts weigh in on Admitted Killer’s claims: ‘This is all a lie’

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.

TAMPA, Fla. – Brian Laundrie framed his strangulation of Gabby Petito as an act of mercy and an “unexpected tragedy” in a shocking handwritten confession discovered near her remains in October and only revealed Friday. Experts moved quickly to dissect her story.

He claimed that she was “trembling violently”, “freezing” and apparently had injuries before he killed her and took the path to his own suicide.

Longtime medical examiners, Drs. Michael Baden, Cyril Wecht and Brent Blue, the latter of whom performed the autopsy on Petito, 22, in late 2021, spoke to Fox News Digital on Friday just hours after details of Laundrie’s confession were released. . So did John Kelly, a criminal profiler and psychotherapist who has interviewed numerous killers, and Jason Jensen, a private investigator. Laundrie, 23, scribbled eight notebook pages of notes she left behind before she allegedly shot and killed herself at a Florida environmental park.

MURDER OF GABBY PETITO: BRIAN LAUNDRIE’S NOTEBOOK CONFESSION REVEALED, ‘I ENDED HER LIFE’

Fox News Digital was the first to report the details of the note. Laundrie wrote how she “ended her life” because she “thought it was merciful, which is what she wanted.”

“He tiptoed through the confession. He wanted to present it as mercy killing,” Kelly, the criminal profiler, told Fox News Digital. “That’s what’s bothering me more than anything.”

Laundrie claimed that he and Petito were “trying to cross” a creek when he heard “a splash and a scream.”

“I couldn’t find her for a moment, I called out her name. I found her gasping for air, gasping my name, she was freezing cold,” she wrote. “When I pulled Gabby out of the water, she couldn’t tell me what was hurting her. She had a little lump on her forehead that got bigger over time. Her feet hurt, her wrist hurt, but she was freezing, shaking violently, as she I carried her. She continually made sounds of pain, lying on her side, she said little, lapses between violent jerks, gasping in pain, begging for an end to her pain.”

SEE IMAGES OF THE NOTE LEFT BEHIND:

He added: “I don’t know the extent of Gabby’s injuries (sic). Just that she was in extreme pain.”

Kelly poked fun at this version of events: “He found her gasping for breath and so he decided to strangle her? An ‘unexpected tragedy’ is when you’re in a car accident or slip and fall and God forbid someone get away with it.” it hurts much”.

Wyoming’s Teton County Coroner Dr. Blue ruled Petito’s death a homicide resulting from manual strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head and neck. He told Fox News Digital on Friday that he was limited in what he could discuss about the case.

“In any case, euthanasia is not legal in any state or anywhere. Euthanasia is murder.”

— Dr. Cyril Wecht to Fox News Digital

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“Under Wyoming Law, all I can release is your name, your date of birth, and the cause and manner of death,” he said when contacted by phone. The coroner’s office did not release Petito’s autopsy report.

READ A WRITTEN VERSION OF THE NOTE HERE:

Jenn Bethune, who was in the Wyoming area at the time of Petito’s death, disputed Laundrie’s claims about the temperature. Bethune told Fox News Digital that the weather was hovering around 40 degrees, instead of the 38 degrees Fahrenheit that Laundrie claimed.

BRIAN LAUNDRIE FOUND: PARENTS MAY HAVE MISSED DISCOVERING REMAINS THEMSELVES

“He tiptoed through the confession. He wanted to present it as a mercy killing. That’s what bothers me more than anything.”

— John Kelly, criminal profiler

Even if Petito had experienced hypothermia before his death, his remains likely would not have shown such signs, explained Dr. Wecht, who did not work on the case and is not prohibited from speaking about it. If his body had been hypothermic or exposed to such low temperatures for an extended period of time, a forensic pathologist probably couldn’t tell unless the condition was “serious and prolonged.”

And even then, Wecht told Fox News Digital, the time it takes before the body is recovered would also play a role. But Wecht said violent shaking is not a sign of severe hypothermia.

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“Hypothermia, at first, you’ll be cold as hell… But then when the hypothermia becomes significant, then you don’t flinch, you don’t move,” he said. “In fact, in surgery, that’s why they put patients into a hypothermic state. Everything slows down noticeably.”

“Laundrie could have contacted another camper or made a 911 call within minutes.”

— Jason Jensen, private investigator

Both Kelly and Jensen, a Utah-based private investigator who has been following the case, also found the story about Petito falling into the shallow creek hard to believe.

“He writes this ridiculous story about her falling and injuring herself while crossing Spread Creek, and he describes how he couldn’t leave her behind,” Jensen said, calling it “an attempt to rewrite history.”

He left her behind, sometime in late August. Search teams found her remains on September 19.

Laundrie’s attempt to portray Petito’s death as a mercy killing by strangling her on the spot instead of dragging her to the car and seeking help is pointless, Kelly said.

“I don’t believe in this whole accident thing because how can you say that you love someone so much, that you can’t go on without them, that you love them so much that you’re willing to kill yourself like Romeo and Juliet?” Kelly asked. “She’s hurt, and you won’t go get help for her. And not only won’t you go the extra mile, you won’t even report her missing.”

Dr. Baden, who served as New York City’s chief medical examiner and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies in his more than five decades as a forensic pathologist, said there is some information, though not much, that points to signs of stomach bleeding as a result of severe hypothermia.

“In general, hypothermia does not cause lesions that are easily found at autopsy. There is some information that there may be small bleeding in the stomach in very severe cold depths,” he explained. “But that’s in the undergrowth. That’s the undergrowth of forensic pathology.”

Nor was he attached to the case.

HOMICIDE OF GABBY PETITO: TIMELINE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE WITH BRIAN LAUNDRIE

If Petito had suffered a concussion, as Laundrie claimed to have feared, such an injury would not have been apparent during the autopsy examination, Baden and Wecht said.

“Nothing would show up in the brain,” Wecht said.

However, if it had been, Kelly said based on existing signs of domestic abuse, she believes it would have been intentional.

“If she got hit in the head, it was him,” she said. “I don’t think this was an accident.”

Wecht has been involved in some of the most high-profile death investigations in the country, including those involving President John F. Kennedy and JonBenét Ramsey. Baden has also been involved in high-profile cases, such as the death of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“In any case, euthanasia is not legal in any state, anywhere,” Wecht added. “Euthanasia is murder.”

In addition to the limited details released about the autopsy, Laundrie’s handwritten confession also sheds light on Gabby’s last moments and her homicidal rationale.

Patrick Reilly, an attorney representing Petito’s family, told Fox News Digital outside the FBI building that he could not comment Friday. The family’s deputy attorney, Richard Stafford, did not immediately respond.

Laundrie’s parents, for their part, felt “terrible” Friday, according to their attorney Steve Bertolino.

Even in his confession, a supposed apology, he evaded responsibility.

“He said he ended his life,” Jensen said. “He can’t admit ‘I killed her’.”

Kelly, the criminal profiler, said the letter, along with Laundrie’s past behavior on a police body camera in Moab, Utah, and in an alleged fight with waiters at a Jackson restaurant shortly before Petito’s death , exhibited signs of extremely narcissistic and sociopathic personality disorder. disorder.

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Those events were also evidence of a pattern, according to Jensen.

“The truth is that he killed her because he was a domestic abuser,” Jensen said. “He strangled her and he had done it before. The fact was suggested about her fight on August 12 in Moab.”

Then he left her in the Wyoming desert, alone, and drove to Florida in his truck and spent her money. Before shooting herself in the head at one of her favorite local parks, she went camping with her family, spent time with her nephews and ignored Petito’s parents as they desperately searched for information on his whereabouts. her.

“The only thing I give him credit for, in a way, is that he chose to be eaten by animals,” Kelly said. “In the end, it seemed true that he wanted to disappear. He felt like he was nobody.”