If you’ve finished Netflix’s new docuseries, American Murder: Gabby Petito, and still have questions, you’ve come to the right place. You may wonder what Brian Laundrie‘s ethnicity might have been, especially because Laundrie’s mother and father played such a pivotal role in the story. In this article, we’ll fill in those details as best we can.
Petito and Laundrie — who was 23 when he died in 2021 — were a couple and aspiring influencers when Petito disappeared on a cross-country trip that the couple chronicled on social media. Multiple reports state that Laundrie and his family moved to Florida from Long Island, NY, where Laundrie met Petito while both of them were still in high school. Petito’s search went viral online, including police body cam footage from police stopping the couple near Moab City, UT, after witnesses said they saw Laundrie strike Petito before she vanished.
In that footage and other social media posts, you can hear Laundrie’s voice, and in video interviews with Laundrie’s parents since then, there’s no discernible evidence to suggest the Laundrie family spoke any other language before they spoke English, or that they originated somewhere outside the United States. House of Names says the Laundrie surname dates to Anglo-Saxon Britain, with spelling variations including Landry, Landray, Landrey, and Laundry. Namescensus adds that the Laundrie surname likely originated in France.
What did Laundrie’s family know, and when did they know it?
Shortly after the police interaction was captured on body cam footage, Petito’s mother reported her missing when she lost contact with her daughter. Petito was later found dead at Grand Teton National Park, and Laundrie was named a person of interest in the case. By that point, Laundrie had returned alone to his parents’ home in Florida but refused to speak to police, as his parents had done throughout the search.
About a month after Petito was last seen, Laundrie’s parents admitted they hadn’t seen their son for several days, and Florida authorities launched a massive manhunt in the area. Laundrie’s remains were later found at a nearby wilderness area near his home, alongside a notebook in which Laundrie confessed he killed Petito. Laundrie characterized it as a mercy killing, which experts doubt, based on what Laundrie said happened. Laundrie’s cause of death was ruled suicide.
Roberta and Christopher’s ongoing controversy
The murder of Gabby Petito:
Gabby Petito was a killed as she and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie were on a cross-country road trip in 2021. Laundrie later died by suicide and left a note saying he was responsible.Feb 21, 2024Settlement reached between Gabby Petito and Laundrie… pic.twitter.com/emkYBYTUAz
— Michael Belcher (@MichaelLBelcher) April 6, 2024
While Laundrie’s ethnic background is unclear, his parents, Roberta and Christopher Laundrie, remain a controversial part of the story. Along with a notebook containing Brian’s confession, authorities found a letter from Roberta telling her son she’d help him “hide a body,” with other passages suggesting she knew what her son had done and may have even known where Gabby’s body was before it was found.
Since then, Petito’s parents, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt, have filed a civil suit against Laundrie’s parents, alleging they withheld information about what happened to their daughter and even planned to help their son leave the country. Rather than cooperate with Petito’s family, they avoided contact with her parents and referred all questions to their lawyer, who the lawsuit suggests may have also known Brian killed Petito.
“Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie exhibited extreme and outrageous conduct which constitutes behavior, under the circumstances, which goes beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as shocking, atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the civil suit said, People reported. The two families settled out of court, according to NBC News, and since then, Christopher and Roberta have largely stayed out of the public eye.
