Two weeks before the reported disappearance of his fiancée Gabby Petito, Brian Laundrie allegedly enlisted the services of a defense team in Wyoming, funded by his parents.
On Tuesday’s “Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” episode, Petito family lawyer, Patrick Reilly, said that not only did the Laundrie family know Gabby was dead, but that their lawyer likely knew where Brian Laundrie hid her body.
The information comes after the latest amended complaint filed last week in Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt’s lawsuit against Laundrie’s parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, and their attorney, Steve Bertolino.
“I highly suspect Bertolino did (know where the body was),” Reilly told Grace. “At his deposition, we had a conversation…He told me he had called several law firms out in Wyoming, and he also called the public defender’s office in Jackson.”
Jackson, Wyoming, is around an hour away from Teton County, where Gabby Petito was found on September 19, 2021.
“And I asked, ‘why did you call the public defender’s office in Jackson?’ He refused to answer the question,” Reilly said.
Court documents submitted to the court by Reilly contend that on August 29, 2021, Brian Laundrie made a “frantic” phone call to his parents and said that “Gabby was ‘gone’ and he needed a lawyer.”
On September 2, 2021, the Laundries allegedly contacted Bertolino, who then “entered into a fee agreement with Fleener Peterson LLC,” a defense law firm in Laramie, Wyoming.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Gabby Petito vanished in August 2021 while on a cross-country road trip with Brian Laundrie. She was reported missing on September 11, 2021, and her remains were later found at a campsite in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Authorities concluded that she died by manual strangulation.
After the murder, Brian Laundrie is believed to have driven the van the couple was traveling in back to his parents’ home in North Port, Florida, where he arrived on September 1 alone.
When the victim’s family reached out to the Laundrie family in an attempt to find Gabby, Roberta Laundrie blocked Gabby’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, on Facebook and allegedly refused contact by phone.
“Robert blocked Nicole on Facebook,” ABC 7 Saratoga reporter, Melissa Ratliff, told Grace. “There was a lot of just locking down on social media.”
The Laundrie family remained mostly mum following Gabby’s disappearance, leaving her family in limbo, wondering where she was and if she was OK. The latest court documents in the civil case against the Laundries, however, begin to shed light on what they may have known.
“The deposition was the first time we had any acknowledgment from Roberta and Chris Laundrie that they even had an inkling of what happened,” Ratliff added.
“There was just such quickness done to keep everyone out of being able to contact him…We [ABC 7] could not even get in touch with Roberta Laundrie or Chris Laundrie.”
The actions of Bertolino, however, are what ultimately sparked the civil lawsuit, according to Reilly. The latest deposition was part of the ongoing suit, filed in 2022, for emotional distress.
“The case is based upon attorney Bertolino’s statements of September 14 and September 19 of 2021,” Reilly said. “He said he ‘hoped the family was reunited.’ And the result of that [the plaintiffs] and their spouses were going through conflicting emotions and thoughts on whether she’s alive or not alive.”
Members of the Laundrie and Petito families have both been questioned in depositions over the past several months.
In a separate wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Petito’s family, Brian Laundrie’s estate agreed to pay a $3 million settlement last year.
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[Feature Photo: Gabrielle Petito/Instagram]
