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Gabby Petito implored boyfriend who later killed her to stop calling her names, letter released by FBI shows
Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old who was killed by fiancé Brian Laundrie in 2021, wrote a letter asking him to stop calling her names and telling him she would “always have (his) back,” according to recently released FBI documents.
The letter is among over 300 pages of documents related to the investigation. The handwritten letter is not dated.
In the letter, Petito referenced a fight between the couple and alluded to stressors that Laundrie had been experiencing.
“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’re a team and I’m here with you,” Petito wrote, in part. “I’m always going to have your back. … I just love you too much, like so much it hurts. 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.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Petito and Laundrie, both from Florida, were on a cross-country trip that she documented on social media when she was killed in 2021. Petito last posted on social media on August 25 and was reported missing by her parents on Sept. 11 after not hearing from her outside of a few strange text messages. On Sept. 15, Laundrie was named a person of interest in her disappearance. An arrest warrant was later issued.
Petito’s remains were found in Wyoming on Sept. 19 and identified two days later. Her death was ruled a homicide via strangulation.
It wasn’t until Oct. 20 that Laundrie’s remains were found by the FBI at a Florida reserve where they had been searching for him. The FBI also found personal items, including a notebook where he claimed responsibility for Petito’s death. The remains were identified the next day, and a month later, Laundrie’s attorney announced that he had died by suicide.
CBS2
The Petito family and the Laundrie family engaged in a wrongful death lawsuit filed after authorities concluded that Laundrie had strangled Petito. Petito’s family also alleged that Laundrie’s family knew their daughter was dead weeks before her remains were found, and knew where her body was.
The Petito family received a $3 million settlement that their attorney said would go to the Gabby Petito Foundation, which is dedicated to searching for missing people and curbing domestic violence.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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