The letter Brian Laundrie was supposed to get from his mom was meant to show how much she loved him

Gabby filed a motion requesting that Roberta Laundrie bring a shovel to help bury a body in Sarasota County Circuit Court

Patrick Reilly, the attorney for the parents of Gabby, said that they filed a motion requesting a letter saying that Roberta Laundrie would bring a shovel to help bury a body. Reilly had previously said that he saw the letter at an FBI regional office.

The lawyer for Petito’s parents, Patrick Reilly, said during a remote hearing in Sarasota County Circuit Court in Florida that he saw the letter at an FBI regional office and it expressed things “including helping him get out of prison, getting a shovel and some other things.”

Reilly claimed that the envelope contained a letter that said “burn after reading” when he discovered Brian Laundrie’s body.

Gabby’s remains were found at Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest and her death was ruled a homicide by manual strangulation. According to the FBI, Brian had a notebook that he wrote in before taking his own life.

The Petito family is suing the Laundrie family for intentional infliction of emotional distress over Petito’s death during the trip. Roberta Laundrie said in her affidavit that she wrote the letter to make up for lost time with her son, who was planning to leave home.

The unfortunate events that followed the trip pre-dates the creation of this document. I know that some of the wording that was used in the letter is unfortunate and might suggest that it has some connection but it doesn’t,” defense attorney P. Matthew Luka said in court.

“The language in that letter is damning and that letter has a reference to bringing a shovel and burying a body,” Reilly said during the Tuesday hearing.

The note that Roberta Laundrie wrote to Brian Laundrie that she would bring a shovel to help bury the body would be included in Reilly’s request. This note was released to the custody of Mr. Bertolino on Friday, June 24, 2022 by the FBI,” the court filing said.

The counsel for the Laundries sent him letters threatening to lawsuit him for defamation after he sought the original copy of the letter.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed by Petito’s parents, who claim that the Laundries inflicted emotional distress on them while they were trying to find their daughter. The couple refused to return calls or texts to the Petito family as they were frantically trying to find their daughter, it says.

Brian Laundrie and his fiancée, Gabrielle Petito, planned to go on a trip to explore state and national parks in a camper van, but in September of 2021, they returned to their home in North Port, Florida.

The murder of Petito was ruled a manslaughter by manual strangulation when her remains were found in Wyoming. The FBI says that before committing suicide, Brian Laundrie wrote in a notebook that he was responsible for Petito’s death.

“Brian and I shared a love of stories and some of the language in the letter was using similar phrases to describe the depth of a mother’s love,” Roberta Laudrie says in the court document. The affidavit states that she credits the books “The Runaway Bunny and “Little Bear” for her inspiration.

Laundrie also says that Gabby Petito had gifted her son a book called “Burn After Writing” that “contains printed questions to which the reader responds by writing their answers on the page. The back of the book instructs the reader to create a secret book and then destroy by ‘burn after writing.’”