Ramblings in a diary owned by murderer Brian Laundrie show he harbored homicidal and suicidal thoughts before he killed his girlfriend, Gabby Petito, in 2021 and discarded her like trash.
The writings were found by the FBI when the agency searched the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, after Petito was discovered dead in Wyoming and before he took his life at a park near his family’s home.
The New York Post filed a request for documents related to the case under the Freedom of Information Act.
According to its report Monday, Laundrie wrote many of the entries just months before he met Petito and several years before he strangled and beat her to death and dumped her body in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest in August 2021.
One disturbing entry from Oct. 26, 2018, documented how a manic Laundrie would douse himself in gasoline in order to put himself one spark away from burning to death.
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“About a year ago I went in to a type of mania where I was smashing holes in the wall with my head, kicking [through] paintings, tearing whatever I was working on, pouring gasoline on myself to burn alive but getting the lighter wet, parking out in murderland listening to Mac [unclear, but maybe ‘DeMarco’] with a gun to my head, wrestling alligators,” he wrote.
He also described his suicidal thoughts.
“I wanted to die and the weird thing is nothing’s changed, but the [timer’s] running down,” Laundrie wrote. “Under the mattress I’m on is a loaded 357 magnum revolver.”
He said a “pull of the trigger and all my problems will be over.”
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Laundrie also wrote about his fear Petito would leave him, but he did not date the entry.
“The ocean pours out of her blue eyes and the fire is out,” he scribbled. “With one word the pain is gone. ‘Brian?’”
The soon-to-be killer added, “Oh how sweet she is to say we should get together, but you know when you walk out that door she’ll be gone forever again. [You’re] back in the car, haunted by the eyes you’ll never look into again.
“The pain burns fresh because you know it’s just tonight. You wake up and [you’re] both free.”
FBI agents also found multiple firearms, magazines and ammunition, a crossbow and a set of brass knuckles.
In addition, they discovered books that had been hollowed out — presumably used to hide items Laundrie wanted concealed from his parents or others.
One book that was found that had not been altered was “Choke,” a 2001 novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
A description of the book’s plot explains how a character named Victor Mancini preys on good people to benefit from their generosity through a scheme.
“Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: He pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be ‘saved’ by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him,” it says.
In the book, the main character also spends time around sex addiction recovery hangouts in order to find “action.”
Petito family attorney Brian Stewart reacted to the trove of writings in an interview with the Post.
“In retrospect, it tells us that Brian dealt with mental health issues and was clearly a narcissist and manipulator capable of violence,” Stewart said. “That’s just scary.”
Laundrie grabbed national headlines in late August 2021 when he returned to Florida alone after he and Petito had set out on a months-long road trip that they had been sharing on social media.
When Petito’s body was found, Laundrie killed himself with a single gunshot in the T. Mabry Carlton Jr. Memorial Reserve while on the run from police.
WFLA-TV reported a notebook was found near his remains that read, “I am ending my life not because of a fear of punishment but rather because I can’t stand to live another day without her.”
