The “distraught” parents of Gabby Petito were present in the courtroom for a hearing to decide a motion filed by the parents of Brian Laundrie. They want the judge to dismiss the civil case against them. The Laundries weren’t there. They didn’t bother to show up, which won’t impress hizzoner one bit.
The Laundrie family knew
Brian Laundrie is a killer and his parents are “callous and shameful,” a lawyer for the Petito family insists. Nicole Schmidt, 41, sat beside her estranged husband, 42-year-old Joseph Petito.
They’ve been devastated since their 22-year-old daughter Gabby didn’t come home from a bizarre van adventure, which cost the young woman her life.
The autopsy revealed that Gabby had been strangled. Her body had been left behind in Wyoming. Her parents are now suing Christopher and Roberta Laundrie. The really bizarre way they acted through the whole thing indicates they knew a whole lot more than they were telling.
They also apparently actively tried to cover it up. It’s a virtual certainty that they “knew their son had murdered Gabby after he returned to their Florida home alone – and tried to help him flee authorities.”
The Laundrie family “allegedly knew their son killed Petito and took him on vacation.” They kept real quiet during the search but they knew right where to find his body. After the swamp drained.
They had previously left him alone nearby and returned home without him. They probably were helping him hide from police. That didn’t keep cops from camping out near the home until his remains were eventually located.
Emotional distress
According to the civil complaint filed by Gabby’s parents, the Laundries are guilty of inflicting intentional emotional distress on them. The Laundrie family lawyer actually dared to issue a statement saying they were “hopeful of a successful end to the search for then-missing Gabby.”
That was “outrageous,” a legal requirement, they claim, “because they allegedly already knew she was dead.” If the judge agrees that was outrageous, he’ll let their suit continue. He’s already sure to call the no show defendants lack of respect for the court outrageous, too.
According to Petito family lawyer Patrick Reilly, “This case is not simply about the silence of Robert and Christopher Laundrie who knew their son had brutally murdered Gabby Petito.”
It wasn’t even about their “callous refusal despite pleas from the Petito family” to tell them if she was alive or dead. Maybe even the location of her body.
The thing that has the Petito parents distressed enough to sue is “a course of conduct that they committed from when they learned on August 28, 2021 that their son had brutally murdered Gabby Petito.” Judge Hunter Carroll wasn’t going to just hand them a win on the motion, even though the opposing party ditched the hearing.
He asked the Petitos what duty the parents of Brian Laundrie had to do anything at all to help them. The lawyer argued, “it’s about what they did with the information that they had. Not just not disclosing what they knew.”
