The families of Gabby Petito and Brian Laudrie have settled a wrongful death lawsuit the Petito family launched against the Laundrie family following the death of Gabby Petito last August. A final judgment was made public Thursday ending a part of the legal battle the Petito family has launched against the Laundries. This $3 million settlement isn’t expected to yield $3 million as the Petito family attorney has said that the $3 million amount is just “an arbitrary number.” Whatever the family does receive will go directly towards the Gabby Petito Foundation.
Gabby Petito is believed to have been killed by Brian Laundrie on or around August 28, 2021. After her body was discovered in an FBI-led search in Teton National Forest on September 19th. Investigators believe her death was a homicide by manual strangulation and blunt-force trauma to the head and neck after investigation. Though the case had a late start, Gabby’s family did not know she was missing until Brian Laundrie returned to his parent’s Florida home on September 1st without Gabby.
Brian’s parents got involved in the case as they helped to keep Brian out of the public eye and escape law enforcement. The family went on a camping trip at Fort De Soto Park with Brain days after he returned home while saying nothing about Petito’s disappearance. While it is believed the Laundries knew what had happened and said nothing, Petito’s mother Nichole Schmidt reported her daughter missing on September 11th. Only two days later, Brian snuck into a local swamp where he ultimately killed himself and left a confession to Petito’s murder.
The Petito family is still in another legal action against the Laundrie family and the Moah Utah Police Department.
Though according to Fox News, and the Petito family attorney, Patrick Reilly, the family said the following in a statement:
“The Gabby Petito Foundation will continue to address the needs of organizations that support locating missing persons and to provide aid to organizations that assist victims of domestic violence situations, through education, awareness, and prevention strategies. Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt wish to turn their personal tragedy into a positive. It is their hope that Gabby’s foundation will bring these important issues into the forefront of the public eye to the benefit of all our communities.” The statement continued to say “the Petito family lost their daughter, and they were also denied the opportunity to confront her killer…no amount of money is sufficient to compensate the Petito family for the loss of their daughter, Gabby, at the hands of Brian Laundrie.”
Read more at Fox News.
