Deposition transcripts in a civil suit against Brian Laundrie’s parents reveal the phone conversation between the killer and his father, Christopher, as the elder Laundrie recounted the moment when, in his own words, everything “hit the fan.”
Two days after Gabby Petito’s disappearance during a cross-country road trip, Brian Laundrie called his father, pleading for help and claiming that Gabby was “gone.” The call, according to court documents, happened on August 29, 2021, while Gabby was still missing.
“He was not calm and he got very excited and told me things had – you know, ‘Gabby’s gone’ and he got very frantic,” Christopher Laundrie told Pat Reilly, the attorney for Gabby’s parents.
Reilly: Meaning what?
Laundrie: Well, I have no idea what he meant.
Reilly: Well, what else did he say?
Laundrie: Well, it was quick. He said, you know..and he was very panicked and he said he didn’t know what to do. He said, you know, “Can you help me,” you know, and he might need a lawyer, you know. And I would — I asked him why he wouldn’t tell me. He was very frantic. Everything was frantic and I started to not really comprehend.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Gabby Petito vanished in August 2021 while on a cross-country road trip with Laundrie. Her remains were found at a campsite in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on September 19, 2021. Authorities concluded that she died by manual strangulation.
After murdering Petito, 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.
Laundrie later drove to a nearby nature reserve in Florida about 10 minutes from his parents’ home, where he committed suicide. Investigators recovered what appeared to be a written confession by Laundrie that he murdered Petito.
Members of the Laundrie and Petito families have been questioned in depositions over the past several months as part of the civil case filed against the Laundrie couple in 2022.
In a separate wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Petito’s family, Brian Laundrie’s estate agreed to pay a $3 million settlement last year.
Read Christopher Laundri’s deposition, in full, below
Laundrie Deposition by Leigh Egan
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[Feature Photo: Brian Laundrie/Instagram]
