Before embarking on their ill-fated road trip, Gabby Petito penned an emotional love letter to her boyfriend — and eventual killer — Brian Laundrie. In the letter, she shared her enthusiasm for their upcoming cross-country adventure while also pleading with him to cease his verbal abuse.
In the opening of the handwritten letter, Petito, 22, implored 23-year-old Laundrie to stop crying and calling her names. This letter was among the FBI documents released and obtained by The Post last week.
“Brian, You know how much I love you, so (and I’m writing this with love) just please stop crying and stop calling me names because we are a team and I’m here with you,”she penned in the undated note.
Petito alluded to an argument they had without providing specifics, apologizing for getting “upset over a dumb piece of paper.”
“Yes, I can be a child sometimes, I know, but it’s cause you give me this energy and I just love you too much, like so much it hurts,” she wrote.
“So you in pain is killing me. I’m not trying to be negative but I’m frustrated there’s not more I can do.”
The two-page letter does not clarify what was causing Laundrie’s distress.
Petito also mentioned that upon returning from New York, she would help him work on the van — the same van they drove across the US on the trip that ended with Laundrie killing her and later himself.
“We can work on the van together and they are OUR dreams now,” she wrote.
“So I hope you understand when I’m upset it’s cause I love you too much,” she added. “Now, stop crying!!! And come home and say you love me with a big hug.”
Petito was later reported missing while the couple toured the country in their van, sharing their trip’s progress on social media.
Laundrie suddenly returned home to his parents in Florida without Petito near the end of August 2021, sparking a nationwide search that captivated the country.
Petito’s body was found strangled and left in a remote Wyoming camping area the following month, with authorities confirming she was killed around August 28.
The letter was part of a 366-page collection of writings and other evidence the FBI gathered and photographed during a raid of Laundrie’s Florida home after investigators discovered Petito’s body.
The FBI searched the family home before Laundrie was found dead by suicide in a nearby national park.
Other documents obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request included bizarre and concerning scribblings and writings from Laundrie himself, detailing manic episodes and his desire to kill himself.
Brian Stewart, the Petito family’s lawyer, said that the newly released writings show that Laundrie “was clearly a narcissist and manipulator capable of violence.”
