Topics: Gabby Petito, US News
Gabby Petito’s mum Nichole Schmidt has spoken out about her daughter’s murder in a new podcast episode, revealing there are still details about the case that she’s finding out to this day.
Petito was murdered by her boyfriend Brian Laundrie in 2021, having been almost three weeks into a four-month road trip in her van.
Laundrie later took his own life, with a notebook containing a confession to her murder discovered near his body.
In 2022, Schmidt and Joseph Petito filed a civil lawsuit claiming that Christopher and Roberta Laundrie knew about their daughter's murder, and had been involved in the cover-up.
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They sought damages for the mental pain that the alleged deception had caused them, with Christopher admitting that his son had called him not long after Petito disappeared, telling her that she had ‘gone’ and he would need a lawyer.
The two families reached a settlement last year, just months before the case was set to go to trial.
In a new episode of The Squeeze, Schmidt recalled how she’d reached out to Laundrie’s mum when she grew concerned about not hearing from the couple.
“I texted her asking if they’d heard from the kids – the ‘kids’," she said.
“I said, ‘Have you heard from the kids? I haven’t heard from them.’
“And I got nothing back. Because they knew, they knew what he did. They helped him, they hired an attorney out in Wyoming - $25,000 they put a retainer down on a very high profile defence attorney, which we didn’t know, obviously, until the depositions."
Host Taylor Lautner asked if she’d had a ‘positive relationship’ with the Laundries beforehand.
“No, I just thought they were quiet people, but very nice,” Schmidt replied.
“I actually have a text message I sent Gabby after meeting them in my driveway. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, his parents are so sweet.’
“But you don’t know people.”
She also told Lautner that she found out ‘some new information’ just ‘a few days’ before the interview was recorded.
Schmidt claimed how, by the time Laundrie’s room was searched, it was ‘completely gutted and renovated’.
“None of his things were there anymore,” she said.
“It was gone. So that very same week, Gabby was missing and cops were going to their house to try to get I guess a scent from their dogs to look for Brian, all his things were gone. The room was completely empty, just gone.”
