Laundrie’s ‘mental crisis’ revealed in FBI file: Petito’s family
- FBI releases Brian Laundrie’s diary entries
- He details his mania and doodled skull graphics: 'Trust no one'
- Gabby Petito's family starts foundation to fight domestic violence
(NewsNation) — Family members of Gabby Petito are speaking out after the FBI’s release of Brian Laundrie’s disturbing writings and drawings.
During a raid at Laundrie’s Florida home, investigators found diary entries dated from the year before Gabby Petito’s killing, The New York Post reported. Laundrie detailed his mania and doodled skull graphics with the words “Trust no one” and “Kill.”
After seeing the newly obtained evidence, Petito’s mother and father believe Laundrie was suffering from a “mental health crisis.”
“It’s pretty clear that Brian was having some type of mental health crisis, and it would have been positive to him to get help,” Petito’s father Joseph said on “Banfield.“
Gabby’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, added that the Brian she knew was nothing like the diary entries.
In 2021, Gabby Petito disappeared while going on a cross-country trip with Laundrie, her fiancé, at the time. Laundrie came back home to Sarasota without her.
Her body would later be found Sept. 19, 2021, at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, which allowed a coroner to determine that she was strangled to death and left in the wilderness for weeks before she was found.
While Brian Laundrie was the prime suspect in his fiancée’s death, he too disappeared after taking his own life in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. His remains and a notebook in which he confessed to killing Gabby Petito were found Oct. 20, 2021.
Petito’s family launched the Gabby Petito Foundation to fight domestic violence and advocate for missing persons around the country.
WFLA’s Nathaniel Rodriguez contributed to this report.