Gabby Petito's mother makes bombshell new claim after daughter's murder
Warning: Distressing
The mother of a woman who was brutally strangled to death by her boyfriend while on a dream US road trip has made chilling new claims about her daughter's killer.
Gabby Petito, 22, was murdered by her then-boyfriend Brian Laundrie, 23, on August 27, 2021, with her remains being found in a Wyoming forest three weeks later.
Brian strangled Gabby to death and then drove her car back to his parents' home in North Port, Florida, on September 1st. He disappeared as soon as police began their investigation.
Brian's skeletal remains were discovered on October 20 in a Florida national park, with police confirming his identity the following day. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The story made headlines around the world and was re-told in a major documentary this year.
Gabby's distraught mother, Nichole Schmidt, recently appeared on an episode of The Squeeze Podcast, hosted by Twilight actor Taylor Lautner and his wife Tay, where she made some bombshell new claims about the case.
She alleged that by the time Brian had gone missing, his parents had already 'cleared out his room'.
'I actually just found out some new information a few days ago,' she revealed on the show.
'There was [someone] that was at the house when Brian was missing – and I would say he was hiding, he wasn't missing, but he was actually dead – but his room was completely gutted and renovated.
'None of his things were there anymore. It was gone.
'So that very same week, Gabby was missing and cops were going to their house to try to get, I guess, a scent from their dogs to look for Brian, all his things were gone.
'The room was completely empty, just gone.'
Nichole also made an explosive suggestion that she believes Brian's parents, Christopher and Roberta Laundrie, did this to his room as they 'knew he had killed Gabby'.
'It drives me crazy,' she said.
'That is one thing that keeps me up at night.'
Christopher and Roberta Laundrie have not been charged with any crime and have maintained their innocence throughout the years.
Nichole added that while she feels she has to forgive Brian for murdering her daughter, her entire family remain upset with his parents for their behaviour throughout the unimaginable ordeal.
Nichole and Gabby's father, Joseph Petito, have accused Brian's parents of helping him cover up the horrific murder before he vanished into the wilderness and took his own life.
Brian's parents also reportedly refused to speak to law enforcement in the days following Gabby's disappearance as they frantically searched for their daughter.
A recent Netflix documentary about the case entitled American Murder: Gabby Petito revealed how Roberta wrote her son an eerie note that instructed him to 'burn after reading', where she told him she would help him 'bury a body' because she loved him so deeply.
While she claimed the letter was written before Gabby and Brian went on their road trip, the undated note left the Petito family 'sick to their stomachs'.
The Petito and Laundrie families reached a $3 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit in 2022.
'They said that there's something wrong with that mother, she's clearly not mentally well,' Nichole added.
'And I'm like, 'just add it to the list', because I didn't even know about that. That was crazy to hear.
'It drives me absolutely insane – that's the one thing I can't let go of, because I'm trying to figure out what can I do to make them pay for what they did, but there is really nothing I can do.'
Nichole also revealed that the last time she spoke with Brian's parents was when they travelled to New York to pick up Gabby's things to take to Florida.
'I think we texted a couple times, we were Facebook friends,' she said on the podcast.
'I thought they were just quiet people and I'm okay with that.
'You don't have to be my best friend but I never actually spoke to them after that until I saw them when they did the depositions for our lawsuit.'
Nichole went on to explain that if the situation was the other way around and Brian had been missing, she would have acted very differently.
'Everybody feels the same. I don't understand. I can't comprehend anything,' she said.
'If it was the other way around, I would've called them immediately.
'I mean, I texted her asking if they'd heard from the kids. I said, 'Did you hear from the kids? I haven't heard from them', and I got nothing back.'
Nichole added that she thinks about her daughter everyday and wants people to remember that she was 'a person'.
'I see her, her bright blue eyes and big smile and energy
'When I think about her, I think about the last hug that I gave her.
'I want people to remember that Gabby was a person. She is not just a story of a documentary character.
'It can happen to anyone. I want to inspire people to live fearlessly.
'She wouldn't want anyone to live in fear because of what happened to her.
'You have to go for it, live the dream.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
17 hours ago
- Perth Now
Sad update on Baby Reindeer's real-life Martha
Fiona Harvey — the woman who inspired the character Martha in the hit Netflix show Baby Reindeer — claims she is going blind. The 59-year-old, who is embroiled in a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit with the streaming giant, told Daily Record that she's been diagnosed with background retinopathy. 'I'm going blind and it's not surprising with the stress I have been under as a result of Baby Reindeer,' she told the media outlet. 'I am diabetic and had always been able to keep my blood sugars under control, but my blood sugars have been wild ever since Richard Gadd's show aired. 'I am not sleeping properly, I'm not able to eat properly, I'm not able to get proper exercise because I'm virtually a prisoner in my own home.' Martha in Baby Reindeer. Credit: Unknown / Netflix Background retinopathy is the initial stage of diabetic retinopathy where blood vessels in the retina change due to high blood sugar levels. The law graduate is suing Netflix for $170 million after Richard Gadd based a series on his experience being stalked by a woman — who was later identified as being Ms Harvey. The series opened with the line 'This is a true story', which encouraged the viewer to perceive the entire story and its events as fact. However, last year a judge ruled that the Netflix show was not entirely a true story. Judge Gary Klausner found that Martha's behaviour on the show was portrayed significantly worse than what is accused of Ms Harvey in real life. The series sees Martha jailed twice for her actions, however Ms Harvey has never been sent to jail. Netflix attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying the alleged defamatory claims are actually 'substantially true' but its motion was rejected. The hearing for the case will likely be heard next year.
News.com.au
4 days ago
- News.com.au
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Jamie Foxx has brutally lashed out at Sean ‘Diddy' Combs while delivering a stand-up routine
The 57-year-old Hollywood star has berated 55-year-old Combs amid his ongoing sex trafficking trial - while the pair are known to have tension between them. Appearing at Netflix's All-Star Comedy Night last week, Foxx ruthlessly mocked Combs over his ongoing trial and the lurid alleged details of his sex life that have emerged since the singer was arrested last September. Foxx said, per the New York Post, "That Diddy s**t is crazy, huh? I don't know if he's going to jail, but he's a nasty motherf**ker.'
7NEWS
5 days ago
- 7NEWS
Why do we obsess over serial killers but tune out war crimes?
It is often said that an average person unknowingly walks past 36 murderers in their lifetime — a chilling statistic that fuels Reddit threads, true crime podcasts, and Netflix documentaries. From the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, society has developed a near-obsessive fascination with serial killers. But while these individual criminals captivate millions, mass atrocities and war crimes — such as Israel's devastating war in Gaza, the civil war in Syria, the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims in China, or the ongoing violence in Sudan's Darfur region — often receive far less emotional engagement from the public. So why does a single killer enthrall us more than state-sanctioned violence that claims thousands of lives? University of Sydney criminologist Helen Easton the says the answer lies in cultural proximity and perceived relatability, not just of the killer but of the victims too. 'Part of our culture' 'We tend to be fascinated by serial killers who are part of our culture,' Easton told It feels close to home because victims of serial killings are people who live in the same cities and cultures as us. 'There's this idea of proximity, they feel close to us. They might look like us, live where we live, or share our language.' Easton said victims of serial killers — particularly when perceived as 'random' or middle-class — generate public empathy. In contrast, victims of war crimes in distant or less culturally familiar regions often do not. 'There's a subconscious way we categorise people's value. In the case of the Rwandan genocide or violence in parts of Africa, there's often a language and cultural barrier that distances us,' she said. Easton said with Palestine and Israel, the engagement is higher because of Israel's connection with the western world and strong ties with the US but, even then, it lacks the sense of sensationalised focus we see with serial killers. Even fewer people know or are interested in learning about what's going on in Sudan. But serial killers such as Bundy and Dahmer — whose crimes sprees rocked suburban America in the 1970s — continue to fascinate even years after their deaths and captivate the public through documentaries, books, and movies. Bundy kidnapped, raped and killed dozens of young females — many of them students he abducted from their homes., college campuses or from public places by pretending he needed help — across Washington, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Florida from 1974 to 1978. Serial killer and sex offender Dahmer — known as the Milwaukee Cannibal — killed and dismembered 17 young males from 1978 to 1991, with many of his horrendous crimes taking place inside his suburban home. The enduring interest in both those cases compares with UK serial killer Steve Wright, whose five victims in 2006 were sex workers. Easton's own research into Wright, who was convicted in 2008, underscores this selective attention — saying in many cases, it is the worth of the victim rather than the brutality of the crimes that shapes public interest. 'He fits the definition of a serial killer but there was no morbid fascination,' Easton said. 'That tells us something, we care about who the victim is. Prostituted women are seen as vulnerable and society often blames them for their victimisation.' This phenomenon also extends to how justice is pursued. Serial killers, who often lack social or political power, are easier targets for legal accountability. War criminals, on the other hand, are frequently shielded by political and economic interests. 'Serial killers tend not to be powerful people,' Easton explains. 'War criminals often are, and that structural power protects them. While a serial killer may have power over their victims, they don't have power in the broader sociopolitical system.' Psychological fatigue is also something to consider, Easton says. The scale and horror of genocide and war can be emotionally overwhelming, causing many people to disengage. In contrast, serial killers offer narratives that are both terrifying and digestible — and sometimes hit close to home. 'We get fatigued hearing about war and genocide, it's so horrific that I think that we can't grasp it,' Easton said. 'Serial killers are close to us, they're culturally similar to us, physically, perhaps in the same countries, but they're also distant enough from us for us to be interested in them. The chance of being killed by a serial killer is very low.' Despite the disturbing nature of serial killings, many reports on them are packaged for entertainment — from bingeable documentaries to Halloween costumes. Meanwhile, ongoing conflicts involving mass suffering are frequently reduced to headlines or statistics or buried in global news cycles. These media trends reveal deeper truths about our collective empathy and its limitations.
