Brian Laundrie’s Mom Offered to Help Bury Body in ‘Burn After Reading’ Letter
In the chilling letter, Roberta Laundrie offers to help her son dispose of a body.

North Port Police Handout
A secret “burn after reading” letter written by Brian Laundrie’s mother has revealed how she offered to help her son dispose of a body after the note was finally released to the public on Wednesday.
“If you’re in jail I will bake a cake and put a file in it,” Roberta Laundrie wrote to her son, Brian, who took his own life in 2021 after confessing to the murder of his girlfriend, Gabby Petito, whose body was found a month earlier.
“If you need to dispose of a body. I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. 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,” she wrote in the note, as reported by The New York Post.
“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 letter was released to the public after a Florida judge ruled it was admissible as evidence in an emotional distress lawsuit brought by the parents of Petito, Nichole Petito and Joe Schmidt, against Chris and Roberta Laundrie and their attorney Steve Bertolino.
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Speaking to Fox News through an attorney Roberta said the letter was written before the couple went on their deadly trip and that “the letter was in no way related to Gabby.”
“If you’re in jail I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body. I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags.”
— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) May 25, 2023
This is the Roberta Laundrie “burn after reading” letter she gave to Brian Laundrie.
Sent to me by Petito family attorney. pic.twitter.com/VIiLk3wa4J
The letter, found in Brian Laundrie’s backpack after his death, was in a brown envelope addressed to Brian Christopher Laundrie, with a note below the name: “(burn after reading).”
Roberta Laundrie claimed in a previous affidavit that the letter was an attempt to get through to Brian in a “difficult period in our relationship.” She said the “burn after reading” note referred to a book Gabby had given Brian called Burn After Writing, which encourages people to write letters to themselves—and them burn them—to work through personal issues.
She said details in the letter, such as her showing up with a shovel or baking a cake with a file in it, were references to books Brian had loved as a child, rather than serious promises.
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