Gabby Petito’s mum Nichole Schmidt has opened up about the one thing that was never recovered from her daughter’s van after her murder.
Petito was just 22 when she was reported as missing in 2021.
At the time, she was barely three weeks into a road trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie as the pair strived to live their dream of being nomads.
However, once Laundrie returned home in Petito’s van and told his family that she was ‘gone’, he became a person of interest.
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This was only heightened when he fled as an arrest warrant was issued, leaving people to grieve without answers when Petito’s body was discovered in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest.
An autopsy later confirmed that she had died from blunt force injuries to her head and neck, as well as manual strangulation- believed to have been carried out by Laundrie.
Soon after, Laundrie's own remains were found in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, as per officials.
A notebook in his possession revealed a confession to Petito’s murder, where he described how he had allegedly put her out of her misery after she injured herself.
Now, more than three years since her death, the Petito’s family have continued to talk about their questions surrounding her murder, with her mum Nicole admitting that there is one thing that was never recovered from her daughter’s van.
Speaking on The Squeeze podcast with actor Taylor Lautner and his wife Tay, the mother shared that she had been told some new details.
“I actually just found out some new information a few days ago," she began.
“There was [someone] that was at the house when Brian was missing – and I would say he was hiding, he wasn’t missing, but he was actually dead – but his room was completely gutted and renovated. None of his things were there anymore. It was gone.”
She went on to share that it was the same week that her daughter was missing, and the police had been visiting the Laundrie home to get ‘a scent from their dogs to look for Brian’, however ‘all his things were gone’ and the room was empty.
Even things in the van, which belonged to Petito had been cleared out, with their mattress vanishing and unable to be recovered.
As nobody knows where Petito was killed, her mattress disappearing is a strange detail.
When Lautner asked why things were able to be ‘stripped and cleaned and thrown away’, the mother shared: “The van was cleaned out, the mattress was never recovered, and then all the things were packed away in a closet – Gabby's stuff was packed away in a closet.
“I mean, I don’t understand, I don’t get it. Just strange behaviour.”
As for Laundrie’s parents, who Nicole believes shot and killed their son as it would be better for him to be dead as opposed to being in jail, she said: “They said that there’s something wrong with that mother, she’s clearly not mentally well. And I’m like, ‘just add it to the list’, because I didn’t even know about that. That was crazy to hear.”
Topics: Crime, Gabby Petito, Podcasts, US News, True Crime
Britt Jones