Shovel To Bury Petito’s Body Offered By Laundrie’s Mother: Attorney

SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — In recent Florida court documents, the attorney for Gabby Petito’s family alleges that Brian Laundrie’s mother offered her son “a shovel to help bury” his fiancée’s body in 2021.

Petito was killed at the hands of Laundrie in August 2021 at a Wyoming campsite while they were on a cross-country trip. He later took his own life, shooting himself in the head in a Sarasota County park, in September of that year. His remains and a handwritten confession to killing his fiancée were found in October 2021.

This spring, her parents sued Brian's parents, Christopher and Roberta Laundrie, for intentional infliction of emotional distress and claimed they knew that their daughter was dead and where her body was during a national search for her. The case will go before a jury in Venice next summer.

Attorney Patrick J. Reilly filed a Dec. 20 motion on behalf of the Petito family in their civil lawsuit against the Laundries asking them to fulfil a request for specific documents in the case.

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Among the documents requested are conversations between the Laundries and their son around the time Petito was slain, as well as their conversations with any third parties about the couple.

The requested documents also include a note allegedly written by “Roberta Laundrie…to Brian Laundrie (in) which she offered to bring a shovel to help bury the body,” Reilly wrote.

This note was given to Steven Bertolino, an attorney representing the Laundries since Petito was reported missing, by the FBI on June 24 of this year, Reilly added.

Earlier this month, Bertolino was added to the lawsuit as a defendant in an amended complaint from the Petito family. The Petito’s claim the attorney also knew that their daughter was dead at a time he was acting as a spokesperson for the Laundrie’s.

All three — Laundrie’s parents and Bertolino — “knew of the mental suffering and anguish of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt in not knowing the well-being or location of their daughter, and further knew that such mental suffering and anguish increased each day that Gabrielle Petito was missing,” Reilly wrote in their amended complaint. “Christopher Laundrie, Roberta Laundrie and Steven Bertolino further knew that they could prevent such additional mental suffering and aguish of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt by disclosing what they knew about the well-being and location of the remains of Gabrielle Petito, yet they repeatedly refused to do. In doing so, Christopher Laundrie, Roberta Laundrie and Steven Bertolino acted with malice or great indifference to the rights of Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt.”

In a separate case, a Sarasota County judge in November awarded Petito’s parents $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Brian Laundrie’s estate.