Hidden True Crime - GABBY PETITO: Analyzing Brian Laundrie's Confession Note with Criminal Psychologist

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

This episode was recorded right after the confession note written by Brian Laundrie was released. However, we have never shared this on our podcast until now. Gabby Petito's body was found months before recording this episode after she had been strangled to death. Host, Criminal psychologist Dr John Matthias, has worked for years with victims of domestic violence. Domestic Abuse Hotline: [phone] About Hidden True Crime: What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, ui and c e.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. This episode was recorded live on June 24th, 2022, the very day Brian Laundry's suicide note, also known as the burn after reading note was publicly released. Eight months prior to the suicide note being released,

Brian Laundrie's skeletal remains were found on October 20th, 2021, in a wooded area in Sarasota County, Florida. Brian was reported missing in September 2021 and was a person of interest in the death of his girlfriend, Gabby Petito. This episode has never been released on our podcast until today. So do you want me to start in, talk to? about this letter, it's a really fascinating suicide note, I guess, would be one way to describe it or goodbye letter. I'm not quite sure if that would be accurate. But one thing that really

stands out in this letter, the first time I read it, was the absence of any conflict in their relationship, the absence of any violence. There's actually no mention of his grief. He mentions his family's grief briefly, but he doesn't talk about his grief. He doesn't talk about his emotions. He doesn't talk about sadness, right? So there's so much here that's not in the letter that I thought that was really interesting. In some ways, this letter, I think, is less an apology and more of a public plea to kind of accept his version of events or to dismiss what he did as an accident. So I think it's interesting in the sense that a lot of this or some of this is about impression

management and him trying to sway public opinion to some degree. I don't think he ever anticipated that people would be so fascinated and obsessed by Gabby's disappearance. And so I think he was probably just shocked that so many people were angry with him and so many people were angry that she was missing. And so I think this letter is really a response to that. And as we go through it, we'll talk more about that. All right.

This letter was clearly not just written, but it is Brian Laundries allegedly his goodbye letter, a confession letter, a suicide letter, many things it's already been called just today. Gabby, I wish I was right at your side. I wish I could be talking to you right now. I'd be going over every memory we made, getting even more excited for the future. but we lost our future and I cannot live without you. I've lost every day we could have spent together, every holiday. I'll never get to play with Illegible again.

I'll never go hiking with T.J. I loved you more than anything. I can't bear to look at our photos to recall great times because it is why I cannot go on. When I close my eyes, I will think of laughing on the roof of the van, falling asleep to the side of illegible at the crystal geyser, I will always love you. That's what I was interesting. So, you know, it's interesting because the first paragraph I think is very nostalgic, right?

He's reflecting on the good times. He's reflecting on their past. But he's writing this after he killed her, right? So it's, from a psychological standpoint, I think he's trying to negate a lot of the negative, obviously. And, you know, the Moab, the Moab videos showed that there was a lot of negative, that they fought a lot. And I think that Gabby was actually in the process of leaving him. So this is pure nostalgia. This is, you know, him revisiting the good times.

And I think that's important for him. You know, I'm sure that there were a lot of good times. So it's not totally irrelevant, but it's definitely kind of an attempt to whitewash their history to overlook the violence. He's creating a little bit of a fantasy here. He's trying to focus on what was rather than what actually happened and some of the problems they had. So it makes sense that he's starting with this because he's really kind of, he's setting the stage for us to kind of enter a little bit of his fantasy world. He's bringing up this nostalgia so that now we're going to find the rest of his letter to be believable.

There's one particular line in here that really stands out to me. He says, but we lost our future. Yeah. We lost our future. No, we didn't lose our future. You lost the future, right? Like, you know, it's a really interesting slide of hand because he's trying to shift blame from himself to Gabby there. There's no we, right?

There's him. He killed her. He's the one responsible for the loss of the future, but he's not taking responsibility. for it there. So here you have, in the first paragraph, at least you have this really nostalgic recollection of the past with this little line in there about the future being lost, you know, that somehow she was responsible for that. She wasn't. If she was, it's because she wanted to leave him. And that probably resulted in some of the violence that led to her eventual death. Yeah, well said. The line that gets to me is also his story.

selfishness I've lost every day that we could have spent together. I'll never get to play with just, you know, them again. I'll never get to go hiking. I loved you more than anything. And so now I, you know, can't go on because my life, I can't do A, B, and C, and D. Not that you won't be able to, but I won't be able to. That's something that I noticed. Right, right. It shows how self-absorabsor. is. But, you know, again, there's that slight of hand about how we lost our future. Yeah, right. They're his memories. His memories are special, even though he was responsible for creating that situation. He's trying to, he's trying to negate it. Right. Well said. I, I, I. Yeah. Exactly. All right. I'll continue reading then. If you were reading Gab's journal looking at photos from our life together,

flipping through old cards, you wouldn't want to live a day without her. Knowing that every day you'll wake up without her, you would not want to wake up. I'm sorry to everyone this will affect. Gabby was the love of my life, but I know she was adored by Minnie. I'm so very sorry to her family because I love them. I'd consider her younger siblings my best of friends. I am sorry to my family that this is a shock to them, as well as a terrible grief.

So the thing that really stands out here, you know, when I read the second paragraph here, I kind of had to pause. I was taken aback a little because if you read the first sentence of that second paragraph, if you were reading Gabs's journal, looking at photos from our life together, flipping through old cards,

you wouldn't want to live a day without her. who's he talking to right i mean you can argue that he's talking to her family and maybe his family but i think actually he's he's talking to the public i think he's actually because so many people were invested in this case i think he's actually making an argument to the public that she was you know quite loved and he loved her equally and he's this is an attempted impression management right he's he's trying to influence public perception by saying everyone loved her you know you guys loved her and you know and so i kind of expect these types of letters just to be from a first person's point of view in other words i expect these letters to be this is how i feel this is why i did you know

from a first person perspective and he's totally shifting you know he goes from first person person in the first paragraph to you, to the public. And that's really fascinating to me because it shows me that there's definitely some self-esteem issues here, you know, that he's extremely insecure, obviously, about, you know, killing her. But in general, you know, he's trying to make an appeal. He knows he's going to kill himself. So there's really nothing left to lose here. And yet here he is making this appeal.

to a broader audience about, you know, don't judge me. I'm about to tell you the real story, right? So it's fascinating because I don't think I've ever seen a suicide note that switches from first person to second person and tries to make a public appeal, even though the person knows that they're going to kill themselves. So he's trying to leave behind a positive impression here. And he does it right away.

He does it with these sentences about, you know, saying you. You wouldn't want to wake up. It's interesting. Right. Who he is talking to is a great question. You know, it's, it's interesting. Who is he writing to? They loved you as much, if not more than me.

So at this point, I'm assuming the younger siblings. It's a new paragraph. But the last thing you said was her, her, well, no, it sounds like the public. He said, her younger siblings were my best. friends and I'm sorry to my family that this is a shock to them as well as terrible grief right so he's not talking to any of those people her family or uh her siblings or his family but now he writes they loved as much if not more than me a new daughter to my mother an aunt to my nephews please do not make this harder for them this occurred as an unexpected tragedy rushing back to our

car trying to cross the streams of illegible before it got too dark to see too cold i hear a splash and a scream i could barely see i couldn't find her for a moment shouted her name i found her breathing heavily gasping she was freezing cold something illegible and the blazing hot national parks in utah Yeah, I think the missing word there might be unlike. Unlike. But I don't know. So the thing that stands out in this paragraph is the unexpected tragedy part. You know, he's now going to tell the story of what, according to him, really happened.

And I think the unexpected tragedy part is really about guilt. You know, I think there's a huge amount of guilt here. It's pretty clear whether this story is true or not, and I'm highly dubious about the accuracy of the story. In fact, I'm sure it's not accurate. But I think, you know, the fantasy he's going to create or this version he's going to create for us is he's telling us it's driven by guilt. And he's trying to explain away his guilt by saying that this is unexpected tragedy.

So now he's going to get into the tragedy a little bit. Sharing that. One thing, again, that I notice in this is, right, the unexpected tragedy really affects me. Oh, do you have regret now that you killed her? I mean, the unexpected tragedy was something you chose to do, whether it was, you know, premeditated or in a rage. Yeah, I mean, again, he's setting. the stage for the rest of the letter, but he's really, I think, trying to appease or allay his guilt a little bit. So, you know, to call it an unexpected tragedy is a strange way to describe it.

Because, I mean, you know, just looking at the Moab video, if you look at nothing but the Moab video, when you look at the larger picture, there's clearly a history of relationship conflicts. There's clearly a prop, right? And so the unexpected tragedy is, I think, probably, more, it's probably more of an expected tragedy in the sense that I think the story's about to tell is a big distortion of what really happened, number one. And it's probably more about whatever this story is to him, my guess is that he probably created some of the injuries here, right? It would make sense that if he created the interd, let's say that he threw her down. Let's say they were arguing and he somehow threw her down and she hurt herself and she couldn't walk back to the van.

That's a very different story, right? And that type of story, by the way, would be one reason why you wouldn't take the body to a hospital, even if she died from exposure in the elements, which is kind of what he's arguing. I mean, he says he killed her, but he's arguing that she wanted him to kill her. And partly because she was so cold and in such pain. And so But that doesn't make sense, right? If you try to make sense of that story, it doesn't make sense why he wouldn't take the body somewhere. He just abandoned the body in the middle of nowhere, right?

Like if you really love someone and you want to help that. I mean, there's so many scenarios we could go through with this. But the bottom line is, you know, he abandoned the body and fled the scene. He went back to Florida. That's not someone who doesn't have a lot of guilt. that's not someone who would have experienced this kind of natural accident that he's trying to tell us about. On that note, if you want to pick up and tell us the story of the accident. Yeah, absolutely. And you said what many people are saying in comments. And Lee B, another

wonderful moderator of ours said, yeah, I'm reading the description as he snapped and beat her and came to and tried to comfort her before strangling her. Right, exactly. And that's, that's, That's much more consistent with, I mean, assuming that some version of the story that he's telling is true, I think the parts he's leaving out are probably that they were fighting or maybe she was going to leave him and he pushed her down or somehow injured her in the wilderness, right, or something like that. I mean, it's not that believable anyway, but I certainly could see something like that. And so the reason he wouldn't have taken the body to a hospital or somewhere to get help is because whatever injuries he created or however he harmed her, that obviously would have become obvious if he took her in. And he would have been arrested on the spot. So he was avoiding, he was evading capture. He was evading arrest, right?

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getting into the story. The temperature had dropped to freezing, and she was soaking wet. I carried her as far as I could from the stream toward the car, stumbling, exhausted and shock when my something we can't read, and I knew I couldn't carry her safely anymore. I started a fire and spooned her as close to the heat. She was so thin, had already been freezing too long. I couldn't at the time realize that I should have started a fire first,

but I wanted her out of the cold and back to the car. From where I started, from where I started the fire, I had no idea how far the car might be, only knew it was across the creek. Well, you know, I want to, let me just make a comment on that last sentence, that he started a fire and he had no idea how far the car was. He only knew it was across the creek. Well, she's fallen in the creek.

So the car can't be that far away, right? Like he's kind of contradicting himself here. He's saying he has no idea how far the car is, but then he knows it's across the creek. So he knows exactly where the car is, right? This is a big trip. This is a big stumble on his part because he's contradicting himself. And he's kind of saying, you know, I knew where the car was. I just didn't want to take her there or, you know, maybe I couldn't take her there.

The car is, oops, he knows where it is. He's saying that. So it's a peculiar sentence to ride. He's kind of implicating himself with that sentence. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. When I pulled Gabby out of the water, she couldn't tell me what hurt.

She had a small bump on her forehead that eventually got larger. Her feet hurt. Her wrist hurt, but she was freezing, shaking violently. While carrying her, she continually made sounds of pain. Laying next to her, she said little. Between violent shakes, gasping in pain. begging for an end to her pain. I want to point out there,

she didn't beg to an end for her life. She begged for an end to the pain. Big difference. She would fall asleep and I would shake her awake, fearing she shouldn't close her eyes if she had a concussion. She would wake up in pain, start her whole painful cycle again, furious that I was the one waking her.

Oh, gee, I wonder why. She wouldn't let me try to cross the creek, thought, though like me, thought like me that the fire would go out in her sleep and she would freeze. I don't know the extent of Gabby's injuries, only that she was in extreme pain. I ended her life. I thought it was merciful. That is what she wanted. But I see now all the mistakes I made. I panicked. I was in shock. But from the moment I decided took away her pain, I knew I could not go on without her. Hoof. Unpack that one for us.

Well, let's start with the first paragraph you read, the bump on our forehead that eventually got larger. I mean, technically, not that there's any need to because obviously this case is closed, but technically, you know, if he was captured, if he was caught in some way, in theory, that might have been found during the autopsy or that might have been part of the autopsy, some type of, I don't know if there was a fracture or if it was just a bruise, but there might have been some evidence of that to verify whether what he's saying is accurate. I don't know, you know, I don't think we've seen the autopsy, but I guess if somebody wanted to double check some of the veracity of this, that would be one piece of physical evidence you could look at. There's probably no reason to do that. So the,

But let's look at the second paragraph. He goes from, he only knew that she was in extreme pain, so I ended her life. I thought it was merciful. That is what she wanted. But I see now all the mistakes I made. I panicked. I was in shock. I mean, it's not what she wanted either.

In no place did he say she wanted her life to end. She wanted the pain to stop, which is what he was inflicting on her, in my opinion, my humble non-psychologist opinion. I think this is what makes his story really dubious, right? Is that most normal people in that scenario would call for help. They would try to find help. They would find other hikers or campers in the area. We know that her body was like in a campground, right?

There's a lot of options there rather than killing her. So, I mean, it's killing her probably would be the, absolute last resort. And even then, you wouldn't kill someone. Even then, I think you would fight to the end to try to save her, right, to take her to a hospital. Exactly. And also, whose decision is that, right? I mean, he's saying, again, he's, he's blaming this on her. He's saying she was in such pain. She was begging me to kill her, right? I mean, it's, yeah, it's disgusting, right, truly, right? He's blaming her murder on her. Yeah, I know. It's, it's, it's, it's, someone who has a very distorted view of the world, let's say that.

And what he's calling love, and I said this on my interview, by the way, with Fox, that what he's calling love, and one of the anchors said, well, they were truly in love, I'm calling it something else, right? It's more like dependency or symbiosis, or it's not, this is not a healthy relationship, obviously. And so I think this really kind of undermines the accuracy or, the validity of his whole story is when he goes from her being in pain to, you know, I had to end her life. I guess maybe he's kind of acknowledging some responsibility when he says that he saw his mistakes, but not really.

Right. People are pointing out that the reporter, that was where her body was discovered, had great self-service, but not just that. The YouTubers with the camera that sort of realized that they saw the van and Brian shutting, shutting the door of that van, it was really something again, he could have gotten their help, not shut the door on them so they wouldn't see. Right. So there were people camping there. They were in a fairly public camp area where her body was found. I didn't know about the cell service, but that makes it even more compelling. He could have called. He could have called at any time for help. I mean,

maybe he would argue that his cell phone died. I don't know. But obviously he could have found help in other ways. So this is just not believable. This is a guilty conscience expressing itself and really distorting the facts, I think. And you're right. I can't get over the fact that he is. He's writing it for the public. I rushed home to spend any time I had left with my family. So it sounds like there maybe he was already suicidal. He knew what he was going to do. He rushed home to spend any time I had left with my family. I wanted to drive north and let James or T.J. kill me, but I wouldn't want them to spend time in jail over my mistake, even though I'm sure they would have liked to. I am ending my life not because of fear of punishment, but rather because

I can't stand to live another day without her. I've lost our whole future together every moment we could have shared. I'm sorry for everyone's loss. Please do not make life harder for my family. They lost a son and a daughter, the most wonderful girl in the world. Gabby, I'm sorry. I have killed myself by this creek in the hopes that animals may tear me apart, that it may make some of her family happy again. Please pick up all of my things. Gabby hated people who litter.

So these are the most, this is the most loaded part of the letter. you know, let's start with the, I rushed home to spend any time left with my family. I mean, that implies that he's not in control of his life. That implies, yes, it does appear that he made a decision to kill himself, but he has as much time left as he wants. There's no need to rush. And again, why leave the body behind? If this was an accident, why rush home and leave the body in some, you know,

part of the wilderness where it's going to get torn apart, right? Like, you know, he's, this is a rationalization. He's guilt. He has a lot of guilt and he's rationalizing his behavior in a way that is very apparent. I mean, he says, I'm ending my life not because of a fear of punishment, but rather because I can't stand to live another day without her. But obviously there is a fear of punishment or I guess. Social punishment there is the way he tries to clear up his public perception of him.

Right. There's a fear of being judged publicly. there's impression management. But I think the more interesting thing is that in some ways, there's the bigger form of punishment is self-punishment. And he doesn't seem to have a lot of fear of that. He's going to kill himself. So there is a lot of self-punishment going on, obviously,

the willingness to take his life over all the guilt he's experiencing. When he says, Gabby, I'm sorry, that's the closest he comes to a confession. that's the closest he comes to actually expressing something emotionally. But, you know, again, like we learn a lot about Brian Laundrie here by what he's not saying. You know, he's not saying, Gabby, I'm sorry. I feel such grief over this loss. I feel such sadness.

There's no emotion he's bringing into play. I'm sorry. It's quite different than there's so much more he should have said there. In this moment, this is the most revealing moment, in this moment of confession and apostion. he's not saying what he really should be saying. So, you know, I guess you could argue that this is someone who's probably not really good with his emotions, and that makes sense. You know, in domestic violence in general, which we might talk about in a little bit, but most researchers agree that the biggest element of domestic violence is control. Coercive control is the common term now.

And coercive control is largely a defense mechanism against feeling emotions, such that. as sadness, vulnerability, helplessness. I think those are the things that Brian Laundry couldn't really deal with. And I think Gabby Petito was very independent. I think that he wanted to control her in the sense that he didn't want her to hurt him. Clearly. And he didn't want her to reject him. And so that was quite obvious from the Moab video that we analyzed. But here, in this moment of I'm sorry, of apology and confession, he He really doesn't have anything profound to say, which I think is really sad.

It is sad. I noted when he was also saying, I can't live without her. And that is why I'm killing myself. That's often something that abuser is using relationships too. If you're not with me, if I can't control this relationship, I'm going to kill myself. I'm suicidal now. If you don't stay with me. And so if there was a moment where she was saying, I think I'm going to leave you, you know, after all their heart,

chips and this van trip, that could have even be what led to his rage. And he thought, well, if I'm not going to have her, then no one is. You know, that might be a closer motive. Yeah, I think that's... Go ahead. I think there's a version of that here, for sure. You know, this next line, I have killed myself by this creek in the hopes that animals might tear me apart. Again, that's pretty severe, right? That's a real form of self-hatred and self-punishment. And, I mean, he's saying essentially that he feels such guilt that he wants to be essentially destroyed by animals.

You know, there's a real punitive element to his, to his tone in this letter, that he's, at least here, right? That he's hoping that animals tear him apart. It's not a, you know, it's not a typical thing to put in a suicide. side letter. He's already going to kill himself, but he can't, you know, when you kill yourself, you can't really control what happens after that. So he's taking this extra step of saying, you know, I hope they tear me apart, which I think in some ways too, he's kind of, he's trying to represent how he feels internally. He feels a lot of turmoil and he feels a lot of distress.

And so I think that he's kind of hoping that he's kind of saying that, this is going to happen to me. I hope this happens to me because that's how I feel inside. Right. Well said. And then when he says, and that it may make some of her family happy, I mean, you know, that's a really, again, it gets into that kind of punitive mindset that he sees her family as being very adversarial and rightly so they were quite upset. They wanted to know where their daughter was and he knew but didn't disclose. Right. He indicates, Kerry Livingston wrote, he indicates he cared for Gabby's family. But look at how much he cared. He ignored them after murdering Gabby.

And they had to look for their daughter. Right. And he's saying here that, you know, if animals tear them apart, that'll make them happy. So clearly he's got some mixed feelings about how he feels about the family. And again, I think this is indicative of the guilty conscience. He knows what he did was, he know he killed her. He knows the story is not accurate. He knows he's distorting it. And I think he's being quite honest here and saying, look, you know, I feel horribly about this.

Which, by the way, his guilt is, you know, it's compared to a lot of the psychopaths I deal with, like to see guilt is, you know, a positive. He wasn't, he wasn't like a total monster. He did have apparently a little bit of a conscience. So he just didn't know how to kind of direct his moral compass. So, but this is, this is a really interesting line to kind of end with in terms of, showing what's in his mind and showing how much he hates himself and how he wants to be punished. What is that last line again? Oh, no, I'm still on the animals.

The last line is, please pick up all of my things. So this line is really fascinating too. The last line is, please pick up all my things. Gabby hated people who litter. So my thought about that was, you know, that there's a real irony in this line because he brought a backpack and he was littering, right? She hated people who littered and he was littering, literally littering in that spot. And so what does that mean? Did she hate him? Is he telling us that she hated him because he litters? And remember the fight in Moab? It was about him, his stinky feet in the van

and how she asked him repeatedly to wash his feet and he didn't. And so the fight began over something very simple. And I think this is kind of a version of that. that when she told him to be respectful of the van and to not enter the van with bare feet, he said, I'm going to enter the van with bare feet. I don't care what you think, right? And so in some ways, this is a really fascinating ending because he's saying, I hope people pick up after this mess I'm making because she hated people who litter. So I'm going to do it.

I'm littering. I don't care what you think. I'm littering maybe you did hate me. Right. And again, like to end a suicide note with this kind of ambiguity and this kind of, you know, it's a really, really peculiar way to end a suicide note. Usually people will end with, you know, the I love you or I'm sorry or more of an explanation of why they're doing it.

But here he's like, she hated people who littered. And I'm littering. Right. So. That's how I really feel. And to the very end, she's not going to control me. Right. Right, exactly.

Like, you may hate people who are litter, but guess what? Exactly. I'm expressing myself by littering, so take that. Yeah. I like what Finka just wrote. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. And so I think in this last line, you actually see some of the anger and some of the rage that he had that made him, you know, that led to the murder, that showed that he was capable of murder.

You know, this is not, he's trying to present himself here as someone who's saving her. He's presenting himself as a rescuer as a good guy, right? And yet that's really not where he's leaving us with these last two lines about the animals and the family upsetting the family and the littering. He's really given us a very different picture of himself there. Right. And essentially saying Gabby made me do it. Gabby made me litter. Someone asked if you've seen cases like this before.

Yeah, you know, I've dealt with a lot of domestic violence cases over the years. I'd say domestic violence and sex offense cases are probably the most common cases I deal with. So yes, I haven't seen a case with quite like this in the sense that, you know, it received so much public attention and, you know, with these kinds of dynamics. But I think the underlying issues that crop up in domestic violence were here. which would be, in my opinion, you know, control is widely regarded. Controlling a relationship is widely regarded as probably the primary element in domestic violence. And generally speaking, there's going to be two areas that an abuser would try to control. One is how they're seen, how they're perceived, right?

So that's the impression management component. that abusers want to be seen as powerful and lovable and, you know, strong. And so when there's evidence that deviates from that, they try to kind of move the narrative back to that. So I think there's always kind of this attempt to manage people's impressions. And the second area of control, I kind of mentioned earlier, which is that most abusers really struggle with any sense of vulnerability or shame or sadness or really kind of difficult emotions. And there's a lot of defense mechanisms against that. And the reason I think they do that is because they don't want to expose those emotions because they're afraid of being hurt. And so control allows them to kind of bury those emotions and to make sure that their partners don't,

in some ways in sight or provoke any of the emotions that they find to be really uncomfortable. The Laundry family chose to make this public. Why would they do that? Can they actually believe this? The letter? Yeah, so the Laundry family, Brian's family. Right. It was the attorney for the family. Again, I think impression management, I think the family, maybe the family hopes that the story that Brian Laundry is telling or the narrative, conveyed here will be seen as true. I think the family really believes that a good chunk of people that see the letter will think, oh, wait, this wasn't domestic violence. This is really an accident, right? I mean, there's so many holes in that story, of course, that it doesn't make sense, right? That there would be no logical reason why he wouldn't call for help if it was an accident.

There would be no logical reason why the body wouldn't be taken to, even if she was deceased, it wouldn't be taken to a hospital or he wouldn't at some point drive all night to get to the nearest hospital to try to help her or save her, right? Like, none of that adds up here. So, but I think in, you know, in today's world where I don't mean to offend anyone, but, you know, where QAnon is a regular part of millions of people's lives, I don't know. It's hard to know what people will believe and what they'll see as accurate. And so I think they're putting this out there to try to see if this narrative catches on. And it would resuscitate his image to some degree.

It would go from being one of the most detested villains in American history to a good guy, to someone who tried to help someone in need. Yeah. Yeah. When you cover cases, what am I trying to ask? domestic violence abusers. You shared in a past video we did on this case some telltale signs that you saw in Brian.

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Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. Or violent tendencies, sometimes these are the men that end up murdering. What are some of those things that you saw in Brian as an abuser or do you remember? Probably the biggest risk factor, the research supports that the biggest risk factor for abuse is possessiveness. And closely aligned with possessiveness would be jealousy. So those two are kind of interrelated. And the more jealousy and the more possessiveness, the worse it is for the relationship and the higher the risk. So somebody who's extraordinarily possessive is going to.

to be at a greater risk for not only inciting violence, but for eventually killing someone, murdering someone in a close relationship. So I think those are probably the biggest ones. But the other one, the second one that crops up, or the third one, is fear of abandonment. It's well known that when a relationship ends and when there's some type of rejection, the risks for fatalities, for domestic fatalities, go up tremendously. So the highest risk portion of any relationship is when it ends. And particularly when there's an abusive relationship and violence in the relationship,

it's very, very difficult to get out. And that's why many women struggle. There's a lot of reasons they struggle with getting out. But certainly fear for their life is one of them. Yeah. With the Brian Laundrie case in analyzing the body cam footage, what was the most telling thing this is? out to you because one thing that you did do early on in the case was everybody was stating,

including the Moab police, that Gabby was the abuser. Then the body cam footage came out while she was missing, right? And that's what people were saying. And there were some experts going on live television stating similarly. Oh, we don't see anything wrong with Brian Laundry, you know. And you watched it and it was so clear to you what was going on. I know it's been a while, but do you recall what the most telling thing was? I know for me what the thing was for me that you said, but I'm curious.

I think the way he was managing the police was really interesting. I think he was being passive aggressive and very controlling with the police. And he was trying to, again, he was trying to do a lot of impression management. But I think the real telltale sign was the fact. that she was afraid. I think that her fear and his lack of fear was probably one of the most important elements

that people saw that she was very emotional and she was very upset. And I think that the way I read that was that she was afraid. And I think it was clear to me that her violence is what we call reactive violence, which means that she was responsible. He had already hit her and slapped her earlier.

He'd locked her out of the van earlier in the day. and when they were driving into the park and were pulled over, at that point, he had already grabbed her in the van. At that point, she was just trying to, she was reacting and responding to his violence and trying to escape in some ways.

And I think she was afraid. You know, one of the, there's some interesting research by John Gottman, who's done a lot with relationships, but it's not well known that he did a study with Neil Jacobson back in the late 90s. looking at domestic violence.

And that's one of the things they found is that the males who, it was only the males who were violent, but the males who were violent had no fear. So even when their partners reacted or tried to fight back, they were unafraid. In fact, they kind of mocked them. They mocked the victims. But the victims were all afraid that they had a lot of fear about what was going to happen and they had a lot of fear about being physically abused. So I think that was a pretty good clue that there were some issues there because, you know, she seemed to be afraid.

And that would be based on a history of violence in the relationship. Yeah. Thank you. One thing I noticed too, and you noticed too, is he minimized her ambitions. But the one thing you said on Fox was the first thing you said on Fox when they asked you, they said, well, I'm confused. there was so much love and the videos on Van Life that, you know, you saw. And your first response was, I didn't see that love. And it was such a moment.

No one even knew what to say. And they looked at you and you said, look, did he ever say, I love her? I'm worried about her. I'm concerned about her. Is she okay? You know, not once. He was only, right. He was only concerned about how it would impact him.

In fact, from the very moment the police pulled them over and they separated them, which is common practice and domestic violence. The first thing he said was, what did she say to you? Right? He wanted to know if she disclosed the history of abuse and the relationship. So instead of saying, is she okay, how is she doing? Is she safe? I'm worried about her.

He said, what did she say to you? Right. So that's a really peculiar thing to say. That's not how you're typically going to start off a conversation with the police when they pull you over. So there were a lot of clues. But I think, you know, that is controlling, kind of controlling nature, the fear that she was showing. There were so many things going on there. Yeah.

Yeah. It feels like people in general need to learn and understand domestic violence a lot more than they do and that I do and that everyone does. And I'm curious, any tips you might have or what you would hope people may or may not do to learn. and understand domestic violence more? I mean, it's such a complex topic. True. Any books you recommend? You know, the Gottman-Jacobson book, you know, the study I just mentioned, the Gottman-Jacobson book, I think, is, it's called When Men, Bad are Women.

It's now quite dated, but I think it's a very straightforward, readable book, And I think it provides a really excellent introduction to domestic violence relationships. They have a chapter on myths surrounding domestic violence that they really, it's still relevant. Let me just say that. It's still, even though the research is a little dated, it's still an excellent introduction to domestic violence and domestic abuse. And it's worth reading. If someone has questions about domestic violence or wants to understand some of the myths to get perpetuated, I think they do an excellent job of really clarifying some of those issues.

Thank you. Thank you. Any thoughts about someone leaving a confession as they're dying or lack of someone doing that? Some people hold it to the grave and others? You know, I think it depends on the mental health of the person in question. So I think somebody who's dying that's been pretty open and has a fair amount of mental health is probably going to give a pretty valid, accurate confession and, you know, picture of their life or whatever it is they're trying to convey,

whereas someone who's more paranoid and someone with more severe mental health problems is probably going to be more dubious and more questionable in terms of what they're confessing to. So my answer to that is, you know, the confession will be largely dependent upon the person and their level of mental health and their ability to be open and transparent about their lives.

And that's how I would, you know, evaluate the validity of a confession. And so I think with Brian Laundry, we see someone whose mental health probably isn't the greatest. And you see some real distortions in the way he's conveyed this. I keep thinking one last question. We'll go. And I know this is like a heavy multifaceted question. This question is like its own show when it comes to Dr. John, its own hour show. because John works with abusers and helps them.

So quick answer. Do I think an abuser can change? Yes, I do. I absolutely do. I've led groups for domestic violence perpetrators. I used to lead groups for domestic violence perpetrators for many years. I've worked with registered sex offenders and convicted sex offenders for many years. And I've seen many of them make significant changes.

So yes, I do believe they can. I think the process can be lengthy at times because some of them do have some severe mental health problems. And that takes time. But I found that groups can be really helpful and curative. And groups, I think, are very, very powerful for felons because they feel like they're among peers that understand them. and have committed similar types of crimes. So yes, they can change. Thank you.

And one of those is to help them find empathy, isn't that right? As you say. Yeah, I think that one of the commonalities among many of the people I work with is they are very self-absorbed. They probably have many narcissistic qualities. That's not to say they're diagnosed as narcissists, but they have a lot of those qualities. And a big part of the groups is to try to get them to understand. understand their impact on their victims and to develop some empathy and compassion for other people. Whether or not abusers can change isn't, I don't think, a question that the abused or the

all, you know, women who are being abused here right now should take into consideration as to whether or not to stay. As in, if you're being abused, I hope you can get out, in other words, is what I'm saying. You know, it's not up for us. Also, you know, if the hope is that the, if you're in an abuser relationship and the hope is that you can change the abuser, that's probably unlikely. It usually requires people that are not enmeshed in that dysfunctional relationship to really impact, to have any major impact on the abuser. So they can change, but it takes a long time. And it probably is best, you know, facilitated by someone who's not emotional. involved in the relationship.

Right. By you saying you work with abusers to help them change by no means, means you can change your abuser at all, at all. Right. And again, going back to the risk factors, the more jealousy and the more possessiveness. So if somebody is isolating you economically, physically, you know, if somebody is really trying to socially isolate you, that's pretty severe.

You know, the more of the isolation and the more of the possessiveness and the more of the jealousy, the harder it's going to be to change someone. Yeah. Anything else you want to say to that to those that are abused, thinking that they can change someone? Because I've also seen you help those that are abused get out of a situation too. I think it's a general rule. When you're in a relationship, when you're in a healthy relationship, you know, the general rule is if you have to change someone, it's probably not. the healthiest relationship. So, you know, hopefully there's a certain level of acceptance we have in our relationships. But when there's violence, it changes the dynamic drastically. You know,

it changes the power dynamics. It changes everything. Changes the level of trust. You know, when someone abuses you physically, there's a huge sense, there's a huge loss of trust, there's a sense of betrayal. I think it's so hard to rebuild that trust. But if the expectation is that you're going to change an abuser, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be super hopeful about that. I think it would be interesting to look at the dynamics of the family that you grew up in, if that's the case, in terms of, you know, was your father, you know, an alcoholic? Was he abusive towards your mother? Did, you know, your mom or the children think that they could change him, right? Like, I don't know.

There's so many issues that go on when we consider that stuff. But generally speaking, I think if a relationship gets to the point where you're hoping that someone will change, it's probably not a good sign. Okay. Let's end on this then, because that brings us full circle to something in the Gabby Petito case from the very beginning that was really important. One thing the Brian Laundry was saying during that video is I was trying to get space. I was trying to get space. And the police officers seemed to understand that because that is a valuable thing for an abuser to do, is to try to get space. If someone wants, is going to abuse someone, then they need to walk away. I think the difference there is he was trying to force Gabby.

He was, in my opinion, he wasn't walking away. Brian was not walking away. He was taking her phone and locking her out of her own vehicle. That's not walking away. Can you explain the difference? So that's what Brian Laundrie called walking away, but that was not what time out and walking away and having space is. Right. The way that should have looked potentially is when they had the fight in the van. He locked her out of the van. He took her phone. He was trying to control her more. What he should have done, I think, was say to her, look, I'm getting really angry. I don't like this fight. I don't like this argument. I'm just going to take some time. I'm going to go get something to drink. They were near, weren't they near like a little cafe or something? I'm going to go get something.

to eat. I'm just going to cool off. So, you know, feel free to do whatever you need to do. I'll be back in 15 minutes or something like that, right? Like what he did instead was he took control of the situation and he tried to dictate what she could and couldn't do. Right. Right. Well said. So thanks for explaining that difference. Because that's also something abusers can say to a woman too. Calm down. You're acting crazy. We just need space.

calm down, stop, stop, stop, you know, they can go and do their time out and walk away. It has nothing to do with what the abuser is doing. So abuser and an abused is doing. So thank you. Thank you. I hope that I shared, I'm not the psychologist here. So I hope I explained that last part. Well, I'm a little concerned.

I didn't. So if you need to clarify anything I just said, babe, before we end, I might let you have the last words. Well, I'm just looking at this. about forgiving oneself and yes I think that's really critical I think that if you look at the Brian Laundrie letter suicide note you see that he didn't really do much of that that he was very self-punitive and he's talking about animals tearing him apart he's making comments that indicate that you know that he's insecure I don't think Brian Laundrie ever really got to that point. So yes, I think that's really important.

There's a lot of shame involved in abuse of all kinds, whether it's the perpetrator or the victim. And so I think dealing with that shame and having some capacity for self-acceptance and self-forgiveness is really important. Thank you. We're really grateful for you. Even me. I learn a lot. I love picking your brain. John and I fell in love over phone calls. We were set up by a cousin, and I think that many can understand why I just was able to talk to them and ask my questions, and now I get to do that as our family business. So thanks for being here tonight and for all your share. And thank you, everyone, for being here as well. And please, if you like what you heard, subscribe and let people know.

about John's assessment of Brian Laundry's letter. And John, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, everyone for tuning in. I appreciate you guys. The Hidden Jems. Thank you. Yes, the Hidden Jems. We'll see you. Good night. Thank you.

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