NASHVILLE – Gabby Petito’s mom and stepmom torched Brian Laundrie’s mother over the weekend with matching T-shirts they hope will raise money for domestic violence victims and missing persons awareness.
The fiery message is a swipe at Roberta Laundrie’s so-called “burn after reading” letter, in which she pledged to help her son with a shovel and garbage bags.
Nichole Schmidt and Tara Petito took part in a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee Friday where they delivered victim’s impact statements that they were denied a chance to read in court after Brian Laundrie ran away from justice and killed himself in a swamp.
Schmidt made waves with the audience when she forgave her daughter’s killer — only to skewer his mother moments later.
Gabby Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, left, and stepmother, Tara Petito, right, wear T-shirts emblazoned with “Burn After Reading” — a subtle swipe at Roberta Laundrie, whose son killed their daughter. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
“I speak for myself here when I say Brian, I forgive you,” Schmidt said. “I needed to release myself from the chains of anger and bitterness, and I refuse to let your despicable act define the rest of my life.”
Then she turned to his mother.
“As for you, Roberta, and I call you out individually because you are evidently the mastermind that shattered your family and mine with your evil ways, I see no empathy in your eyes,” Schmidt said. “No remorse in your heart and no willingness to take responsibility for your actions.”
Tara Petito also delivered remarks wearing the same shirt. The family is selling a limited run of tees on the Gabby Petito Foundation website in order to raise money for the fight against domestic violence.
22-year-old Gabby Petito from Long Island, N.Y., was reported missing by her family after her fiancé returned home alone from a cross-country road trip the two had embarked on in early July 2021. (Steve Petito)
Both moms wore matching T-shirts in a swipe at Roberta Laundrie, who wrote an infamous letter bearing the phrase.
Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie left home on a cross-country tour of National Parks in 2021 that she planned to chronicle on social media.
Petito stopped posting to her Instagram in late August.
Laundrie came home early, driving her van without her from Wyoming to Florida and pulled into his parents’ driveway on Sept. 1.
Gabby Petito memorial bench in Florida adorned with flowers. It was installed near where a temporary makeshift memorial had existed for months as police desperately searched for Petito and then Brian Laundrie. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
His family went camping at Fort De Soto Park south of St. Petersburg, with his parents, his sister and her children.
The letter surfaced as part of a civil lawsuit between Petito’s and Laundrie’s families, with the Petito-Schmidt side accusing Chris and Roberta Laundrie of withholding information about the murder and trying to help their son escape justice. The parties settled out of court earlier this year.
Roberta Laundrie stands in a clearing in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on Oct. 20, 2021, just yards away from where police found her son’s skeletal remains that morning. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
“I just want you to remember I will always love you and I know you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you, nothing can or ever will divide us no matter what we do, or where we go or what we say – we will always love each other. If you’re in jail I will bake a cake and put a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body. I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags,” Roberta Laundrie wrote in the letter. “If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I’ll get new guts. Remember that love is a verb not a noun. It’s not a thing it’s not words. It is actions. Watch people’s actions to know if they love you – not their words.”
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The Laundries have maintained that the letter was written months before the slaying and had no connection to Petito’s death.
Brian Laundrie as seen in police bodycam footage released by the Moab Police Department in Utah during a domestic violence stop. Police split the couple up for the night, but just two weeks later, Laundrie is believed to have strangled his then-girlfriend Gabby Petito at a remote Wyoming campsite. (Moab PD)
“The letter to Brian was written prior to Gabby and Brian leaving my home for their trip,” Roberta Laundrie told Fox News Digital in 2023, in one of her only public statements throughout the saga.
When Laundrie’s remains were discovered in a park near their home in October 2021, he was the only suspect in Petito’s murder. The FBI also recovered a handwritten confession preserved in a waterproof bag.
Petito’s disappearance in the late summer of 2021 garnered international attention. She had been chronicling a cross-country road trip on social media as she made her way through national parks with Laundrie.
Her posts stopped shortly after a domestic violence incident in Utah, in which police were called but no one was arrested.
Chris and Roberta Laundrie in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on the morning police discovered their son’s skeletal remains. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Petito’s family started a charity in her honor, the Gabby Petito Foundation, to fight domestic violence and advocate for missing persons around the country.
Gabby Petito was reported missing in September 2021, roughly two weeks after her former fiance Brian Laundrie is believed to have killed her and abandoned her body at a campsite in Wyoming. He later took his own life in a Florida reserve and left behind a confession. (@petitojoseph/Instagram )
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They have lobbied for federal legislation, some of which became law last year with bipartisan support, as well as lethality assessment laws in Florida, Utah and New York.
The foundation donated $100,000 to the National Domestic Violence Hotline last year.
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If you or someone you know is suffering from domestic violence, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 (SAFE).