When Gabby Petito vanished in 2021, police arrived at the Florida home of her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie to search for the 22-year-old influencer — but his parents seemingly stonewalled them and refused to answer their questions.
Christopher and Roberta Laundrie were unhelpful as authorities asked them questions about the Long Island native, damning new bodycam footage reveals.
“I’m not talking to anybody,” Christopher Laundrie is heard telling a North Port police officer when he answered the door.
The officer, who had a New York detective on the phone, asked for clarification. “You don’t want to talk to us?”
“No,” Christopher Laundrie replied with an emphatic shake of the head. “Well, Brian is here, and that’s all we’re saying. We have an attorney. That’s all I want to say.”
A sergeant arrived at the scene and is heard asking the Laundries to give them answers to help reassure Petito’s family that she was OK. The Laundries refused — and also said that Brian wouldn’t speak to them.
The recorded encounter happened on Sept. 11, 2021 — the day that Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, reported her missing after being unable to reach her via phone for more than two weeks.
For nearly two months, Petito and Laundrie, 23, were traveling across America in a white, repurposed Ford Transit van.
Police say Laundrie returned to his parents’ Florida home alone in the van on Sept. 1.
A nationwide search ended eight days later when Petito’s body was discovered near a campground in Wyoming. A coroner ruled her death as a homicide by “manual strangulation.”
Laundrie killed himself in October 2021. His body was found in a nature preserve near his family’s home in North Port, Fla., on Oct. 20, along with a backpack containing what the FBI described as a notebook “claiming responsibility” for Petito’s murder.
Her parents filed a civil lawsuit against the Laundries in March 2022 saying that they believed the Laundries were aware that Brian murdered Gabby and allegedly tried to hide the sinister act.
Both of Laundrie’s parents acknowledged in depositions they had concerns about Petito’s welfare after their son seemed erratic in phone calls shortly after her murder.
Laundrie allegedly called his parents up to 20 times in two days after Petito’s death, telling them that his girlfriend was “gone” and that he needed a lawyer.
Although the elder Laundries denied knowledge of the crime, they sent a $25,000 retainer to a leading Wyoming defense lawyer.
Both sides “reluctantly” settled their lawsuit following a mediation session in February.
