The attorney for Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito’s ex-fiancée released the notebook Friday containing her handwritten confession to the murder of the 22-year-old Blue Point native, whose disappearance and murder during a road trip drew worldwide attention. , after he said he fell while they were hiking in Wyoming.
“I ended his life,” wrote Brian Laundrie, in an undated eight-page note before he died by suicide. “I thought it was merciful, that it was what she wanted, but now I see all the mistakes I made. I panicked. I was shocked. But from the moment I made up my mind, I took the pain away from her, I knew I couldn’t go on without her.”
Steven Bertolino, in a statement released Friday along with photographs of notebook pages written in blue ink, said he made the note public in an effort to be transparent.
Bertolino said the FBI released the notebook to him after he and Patrick Reilly, the attorney representing Gabrielle Petito’s parents, Nichole Schmidt and Joseph Petito, met at the FBI Tampa office earlier in the day to “classify and take possession of personal items.” that belonged to Gabby and Brian.
Laundrie’s notebook was found last October near his skeletal remains in a previously flooded area of the T. Mabry Carlton Jr. Memorial Preserve and Myakkahatchee Creek Park in North Port, Florida. The FBI said in February that Laundrie made written statements in the notebook assuming “responsibility” for Petito’s death, but did not describe its contents.
Handwritten note from Brian Laundrie on Friday to his family.
Credit: Steven P. Bertolino, PC,
“I would like to share with the public the note that the FBI alluded to when it said on January 21, 2022 that Brian claimed responsibility for the death of Gabby Petito,” Bertolino said. “Although I have chosen to publish this letter for transparency reasons, I will not comment further as there are still pending court proceedings.”
Neither Reilly nor the FBI office in Tampa responded to messages seeking comment Friday afternoon.
In Laundrie’s suicide note, which is addressed to “Gabby,” he expressed regret and apologized for his actions.
“I feel sorry for everyone, this will affect. Gabby was the love of my life, but I am adored by many. I feel so sorry for her family because I love them.”
He added: “I am ending my life not out of fear of punishment, but because I cannot bear to live another day without her.”
He claimed he killed Petito after she fell and hurt herself while hiking in Wyoming.
“Please don’t make life difficult for my family,” Laundrie wrote. “They lost a son and a daughter. The most wonderful girl in the world. Gabby, I’m sorry.
Petito’s parents filed a civil lawsuit earlier this year against the Laundromats, seeking financial damages for what they alleged was his “extreme and outrageous conduct.” Petito’s parents claimed that the Lavanderías knew that Petito was dead and knew the location of her body, but refused to provide the information to Petito’s distraught family.
Bertolino has called the lawsuit, which is pending, “unfounded.”
Petito left Long Island last July in his white pickup truck on a cross-country road trip with Laundrie, a fellow Bayport-Blue Point High School graduate. Her body was found in September in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. He died from manual strangulation and blunt force injuries to the head and neck.
Laundrie, 23, whom the FBI had called a “person of interest” in her killing, was never charged in her death. She died by suicide of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Nicole Fuller is Newsday’s lead criminal justice reporter. She started working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
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