Gabby Petito case: 'Burn after reading' letter to Brian Laundrie by his mother admitted

Jesse Mendoza, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Updated ·2 min read
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A letter written by Roberta Laundrie to her son was admitted as evidence in court. It includes proclamations of love, and indicated that "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."
A letter written by Roberta Laundrie to her son was admitted as evidence in court. It includes proclamations of love, and indicated that "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."

Gabby Petito's family issued a statement Thursday supporting a judge's decision allowing a handwritten letter titled "Remember…", made out to Brian Laundrie by his mother, Roberta Laundrie, in court this week as part of a lawsuit claiming that Laundrie's parents and their attorney knew Gabby Petito had been murdered but withheld the information.

The civil lawsuit was filed in Sarasota County Circuit Court in March of last year and is scheduled for trial in May 2024. This week's ruling ensures that the letter, which does not contain a date, is admitted in court despite claims that it is not related to the Petito case.

The envelope was adorned with a hand-drawn bird and bore the words (burn after reading) under her son's name. Inside Roberta wrote a letter telling her son that she loved him so much she would help him bury a body.

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A letter written by Roberta Laundrie to her son was admitted as evidence in court. It includes proclamations of love, and indicated that "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."
A letter written by Roberta Laundrie to her son was admitted as evidence in court. It includes proclamations of love, and indicated that "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags."

"I just want you to remember I will always love you and I know you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you, nothing will or could ever divide us. No matter what we do, or where we go or what we say, we will always love each other," Roberta wrote in the letter.

"If you're in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it," she wrote. "If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I'll get new guts. Remember that love is a verb, it is actions. Watch people's actions to know if they love you – not their words."

The Petito family issued a statement after Judge Danielle Brewer ruled this week that the letter could be admitted in court.

"We appreciate Judge Brewer’s ruling in which she recognized the importance of the “Burn After Reading” letter as a potential source of evidence to be used at trial against the Laundries," the family said in a written statement.

"The letter is undated, and while Roberta Laundrie has suggested it was written before Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito left on their trip, a reasonable inference is that it was written after Gabby Petito was murdered, and is evidence that the Laundries and Attorney Bertolino were aware of Gabby Petito’s demise when the statement at issue was released on September 14, 2021," the family stated. "We look forward to having a jury determine when the letter was written at the time of trial."

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Brian Laundrie: Letter from mother admitted in Gabby Petito civil case