Gabby Petito’s parents destroyed the white camper van she was traveling the US in when she was murdered by boyfriend Brian Laundrie to avoid it becoming a sick memento.
“We crushed the van,” her father, Joe Petito, told NewsNation. “We didn’t want the van to be out there and someone owning the van and then saying, ‘Here’s the van that Gabby was…’ So, we had it crushed.”
Still, he and Gabby’s stepmother, Tara Petito, did keep a gasoline cap from the van as well as a sticker commemorating her trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, he revealed.
Gabby Petito, 22, was traveling the US in a converted white camper van with Laundrie in 2021 and documenting their adventures on social media when she disappeared.
Laundrie later committed suicide in a Florida national park and penned a handwritten note admitting to his girlfriend’s murder.
While Petito’s father and stepmother kept keepsakes from her travels to remind them of her, her mother, Nichole Schmidt, says she has forgiven Laundrie.
“I have forgiven Brian, and I know that’s what Gabby would have wanted, and I’m moving forward so that I can help other people,” Schmidt told NewsNation.
“I don’t think everyone has to forgive. They can when they’re ready, or they might never be ready. But for me personally, I needed to forgive to let that anger go.”
After Petito’s death shocked the nation, her family launched the Gabby Petito Foundation to help groups that support locating missing persons and to provide aid to organizations that assist victims of domestic violence situations.
