A Florida judge has awarded Gabby Petito’s family a US$3-million settlement after they filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the parents of Brian Laundrie.
Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt filed a civil suit in Sarasota County, where Roberta and Christopher Laundrie live, in May. The suit claimed that Laundrie was liable for damages because he caused their daughter’s death.
A separate lawsuit, still pending in Sarasota, claims Laundrie’s parents wrongly concealed that he confessed to killing Petito before he returned home in September 2021 to Florida from their trip out west in a converted van. The Laundries have denied that claim.
Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito are shown with their van.
Brian Laundrie / Instagram
Although Thursday’s settlement numbers in the millions, because Laundrie’s estate is far less than $3 million, Petito’s family will only be awarded whatever is left.
“Brian did not have $3 million; it’s an arbitrary number,” the Petito family’s lawyer, Pat Reilly, said in a statement on behalf of the family.
A lawyer for Petito’s parents said whatever money is received will go to the Gabby Petito Foundation dedicated to locating missing people and curbing domestic violence.
“The Petito family lost their daughter and they were also denied the opportunity to confront her killer,” lawyer Patrick Reilly said in an email to The Associated Press. “No amount of money is sufficient to compensate the Petito family for the loss of their daughter, Gabby, at the hands of Brian Laundrie.”
Petito went missing in September 2021 while on a road trip with Laundrie. The case became an international obsession and her slain body was eventually found in a Wyoming national park on Sept. 19, 2021.
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Laundrie’s remains were found the following month in a swampy Florida nature preserve and investigators said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The FBI said it also found a note he had written, confessing to his fiancée’s murder.
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Petito, 22, had been in regular contact with her parents and posted frequently on social media to her large base of followers about her travels.
