Nearly three years after Gabby Petito’s remains were discovered following her disappearance while on a cross-country trip with her then-fiancé Brian Laundrie, the FBI has released more than 350 pages of documents from the investigation surrounding the incident. Appearing just over 100 pages into the release is a letter that Petito wrote to Laundrie, who was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound a month after Petito was found.
In the handwritten letter, which doesn’t note when it was written, Petito wrote: “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’re a team and I’m here with you.” The document goes on to address an apparent argument or disagreement that occurred leading up to their trip, with Petito apologizing for getting “upset over a dumb piece of paper.”
“Just try to understand. 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,” she wrote. “Like so much it hurts. 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.”
The final few sentences of the letter find Petito looking ahead, telling Laundrie: “You know as soon as we’re unpacked and I come back from N.Y. [indistinct] myself I’m going to come work with you cause there’s not much else here.”
The hundreds of other pages include several redacted documents outlining the FBI’s investigation into Petito’s disappearance and what was later ruled as her death from strangulation. A number of the records recount witness interviews, descriptions of gas station and store footage, and photographs of the items authorities recovered in September 2021 while executing a search warrant.
Earlier this year, Petito’s family reached a settlement in an emotional distress lawsuit against Laundrie’s parents. Petito’s family claimed that Laundrie’s parents already knew that their son had killed her and didn’t say anything to her parents, even amid a search effort to find their daughter when she was missing.
Petito was found murdered in Grand Teton National Park on Sept. 19, 2021. This was 18 days after Laundrie arrived back in Florida without her and one week after Petito was initially declared missing. Laundrie — along with his written confession to strangling Petito and his belongings — was found in a Florida environmental park on Oct. 20, 2021.
