Before she was strangled to death by her boyfriend, Gabby Petito wrote a heartbreaking letter to Brian Laundrie, her future killer, expressing her love for him and pleading with him to stop calling her names.
The letter, released recently by the FBI, was one of hundreds of never-before-seen documents relating to the sensational case that gripped North America back in 2021.
“Brian, You know how much I love you, so (and I’m writing this with love) just please stop crying and stop calling me names because we are a team and I’m here with you,” she wrote in the undated letter, which has been viewed by Global News.
She wrote about an argument they had, apologizing for getting “upset over a dumb piece of paper,” but did not elaborate what the fight was about.
“Yes, I can be a child sometimes, I know, but it’s cause you give me this energy and I just love you too much, like so much it hurts,” she wrote in the two-page, undated letter. “So you in pain is killing me. I’m not trying to be negative but I’m frustrated there’s not more I can do.”
She also promised to help him work on the van when she returned from New York, which could be a reference to the van the couple used to tour the country in the weeks before Petito went missing and was eventually discovered dead.
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“We can work on the van together and they are OUR dreams now,” she wrote, before concluding with: “So I hope you understand when I’m upset it’s cause I love you too much. Now, stop crying!!! And come home and say you love me with a big hug.”
Petito, 22, was reported missing by her family on Sept. 11, 2021. At the time, she had been chronicling a cross-country van trip with Laundrie, 23, on her popular social media accounts.
A nationwide search followed, with intense media and public attention focused on finding the pair.
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Her body was eventually discovered in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19, 2021. She had been strangled and authorities estimated she had been killed sometime around Aug. 28.
Laundrie was the only individual ever identified by law enforcement as a person of interest. After a nationwide search, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Florida on Oct. 20. The FBI said a notebook found in his possession contained an entry confessing that he’d killed his girlfriend.
The latest release of documents, including writings by Laundrie, contain many pieces of evidence collected and photographed by the FBI during a raid of Laundrie’s parents’ Florida home after Petito’s body was discovered.
There are also a number of redacted items, evidence logs and photos of banal items like backpacks, books and shoes.
The documents released by FBI are of low quality, but the New York Post, which obtained the entire trove, said some of the materials written by Laundrie in a notebook “include bizarre and concerning scribblings and writings from the killer himself detailing manic episodes he experienced and his desire to kill himself.”
— with files from Global News’ Sarah Do Couto
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If you or someone you know has been a victim of intimate partner violence or is involved in an abusive situation, please visit the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for help. They are also reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
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