Hidden True Crime - GABBY PETITO: "Burn After Reading" | What it Really Means with Criminal Psychologist

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

This episode was recorded in May of 2023, shortly after the "Burn After Reading" letter, written by Roberta Laundrie was released. 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

This episode was originally recorded on May 27, 2023. Court filings revealed that Brian Laundry's mom offered him a shovel and garbage bags if he needed to dispose of a body. This is according to a letter enclosed in an envelope that said, burn after reading. In March 22, Petito's family sued Brian Laundry's parents and Laundry's former attorney for emotional distress in connection with her death. Gabby Petito's parents had requested a copy of Roberta Laundry's letter to her son several times until it was finally released. We recorded this episode just after the letter was released to the public. What we want to talk about tonight is the letter that Brian Laundry's mother wrote. And it's fascinating.

Before we get into the content of the letter, I think we should talk about provenance. provenance means origins or when this letter was written. So provenance is usually a term used in the art world to figure out when a painting was completed and its origins and who did it and all that kind of stuff. So why is that important here? Because Roberta Laundry is claiming that she wrote this letter in May before Bryant's trip. and that, of course, is completely relevant to their civil trial. The timing of this letter would be critical in terms of determining the family's role, the family's knowledge of any crimes.

So it seems to me, in my opinion, it seems to me that this letter was not written in May. It seems to me that this letter was written after the crime. And the reason I think that's true is because, number one, she put burn after reading on it, right? So she's essentially saying if this is evidence in any legal proceeding after the fact that she wants her son to destroy it so that there is no evidence. So she's in a way tampering with evidence, I guess. So that seems a little suspicious. I don't suspect that you would put burn after reading in a letter that you would put burn after reading in a letter that you. you're sending off to your son on a trip that's, right, that's supposedly a trip that's going to be

adventurous and happy and fun, right? But she's putting that in this letter. So that's obviously a big clue as to when this letter was written, provenance, meaning that it's probably written in August after the crimes occurred. So, or maybe later. We don't know. There's obviously no postmark. There's no date.

She doesn't write a date. but there's that element. And then obviously there's the content of a letter which we're going to get into, but this notion that there's a couple of elements to this letter, which are really highly suspicious about if he ends up in jail, she says, I will bake a cake with a file in it. She's arguing that in May before there's a trip that she's concerned about her son being in jail and that she'll give him a file.

I mean, again, unlikely, right? Like it clearly this seems to be a response to a crime. So her argument is this is just this is just the kind of thing we talked about. This is this is just this is normal fare for mom and son, right? Like this is everyday banter here. You know, if you go to jail, I'm going to give you a file to get out in a cake. As if by the way, they're going to let a cake in with a file. Right, which probably means that that was maybe a metaphor somewhat.

But yeah, right, but still, I mean, it clearly, it seems like this is a response to a crime that she knows about. And obviously, the sentence after that is even more damning. She says, if you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. So not something I'd ever write in a random, in a love letter to my son. I'll just say that. Yeah, when you're sending your son off on a, you know, on his adventurous voyage with his longtime girlfriend, I don't think this is the kind of language you're going to use. And I think, by the way, this is why the judge allowed this into evidence, because I think the judge is astute enough to realize that this is not the type of banter

between a mother and a son that you would typically see prior to a crime. So I think the judge determined that this is totally relevant, and rightly so, I think. So those are some of the clues or those are some of the, components of this letter that I think suggest that it was written after the crime, after Gabby was murdered. And actually, so if that's true, I really kind of see this letter as a goodbye note. I think that Roberta knows that her son is contemplating self-harm. And I think she probably knows that she may not see her son again. And honestly, I see this as a goodbye letter, a goodbye note to her son.

That's heartbreaking. Yeah, it is heartbreaking. But I think that's what this is. And, you know, again, and if you want to get into the heartbreaking part, he gets the letter, presumably he reads it. He draws, you know, he was a bit of an artist. He draws the mockingbird, which is from the novel Lullaby on the cover. The Mockingberg represents that there's a lullaby in that book,

that whenever the lullaby is sung, people die. And so again, I think that's another, right? That's another example. The mockingbird is representative of death. He draws the mockingbird potentially as an indication of what's about to occur with himself. So I think, right, that's another element suggesting that this letter was received after the crime was committed, that her son then draws the mockingbird, which is highly symbolic of a novel lullaby, in which the mockingbird in the novel is a harbinger of death,

and then the son is deceased by his own hand. So let me just go through it. Let's start. Let me start with the first line, because the first line is actually really fascinating, and it tells us a huge amount about what we're going to talk about. So this is the letter from Roberta to her son. I believe it was written after the crime.

As I've just said, I think, you know, Roberta's argument as she wrote it in May before they left on their trip, hard to believe. But, you know, there's no postmark. There's no proof that she didn't do that. So, and because her son is deceased, there's just no way to find out. So she can get away with, she can say it was written any time since there's no evidence to suggest otherwise. But anyway, first line from Roberta. She says, quote, I just. want you to remember, I will always love you, and I know you will always love me. I'll continue a

little bit here. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you. Nothing will or could ever divide us. Let's just stop and think about those lines for a moment. This idea, so she starts with, I just want you to remember, I will always love you. And this is the most important part of the first sentence. And I know you will always love me. So that's interesting to me, because you. because I would expect a letter like this to start with, I will always love you. But she follows up, she continues that sentence and says, I know you will always love me.

So in other words, she's presuming to speak for her son. That's a big clue to their relationship because I think most parents will say, I love you, and then how you feel about me is up to you. But here, she's assuming that they're the same. She's assuming that he feels exactly the same way she does and that she's speaking for him. So she says, I know you will always love me.

But I mean, I don't know, does she? I mean, presumably she does, but she's still speaking for her son. So right away we get a sense here that she's telling him, she loves him, but she knows definitively it goes the other way around. So I guess she knows what's in his mind. She knows him. She's telling us right away that this relationship is an amassed relationship. she's telling us that in some ways they're the same person in many ways that they're inseparable.

She's telling us that there's probably a huge amount of dependency. And she says that, you know, as I continued, she says, you're my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you. And here again, we get to the same idea. Nothing will or could ever divide us. Divide is a really fascinating word here because she's essentially saying that, they're completely unified, that they're one entity. And, you know, as we analyze this letter, I think that's actually a really good word to think about. Psychologists often talk about the idea

of individuation or separation. In other words, she's saying they're not separate. They're the same entity. And yet, in many cases, psychologists argue that healthy development, healthy mental health development in particular, involves allowing your child to separate, to individuate, to become their own person. And of course, that takes time. But many psychologists would say, I think, and I'd be one of them, that the parent's job really is to help the child to become autonomous and to become their own entity and to separate from the adult, right, to separate from the mother. And here, Here, Roberta Landry is saying the exact opposite. She's saying nothing could ever divide us.

We're the same person. We're unified. She doesn't want to see him separate. She wants to see him as the same, as her, as a single entity, right? And so what that tells me is that there's a huge amount of dependency here. This is a relationship where the son is and always will be dependent upon his mother for his identity, for probably. certain problem-solving issues. I think in many ways that these two are completely merged.

So she continues, no matter what we do or where we go or what we say, we will always love one another. And again, she's doing the same thing. She's speaking for him. She's saying, I know you're going to always love me. I mean, again, I think in a healthy parental relationship, there's some reciprocity, there's some back and forth. There's some, you know, how do you feel?

She doesn't care how he feels. She knows how he feels, right? She's speaking for him. So, again, this speaks to that issue of deep dependency. And, you know, there's some real problems with this type of dependency, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But one of them is that if you have, if you foster this kind of dependency with a child and you don't let the child kind of individuate and develop their own identity,

then the child is perpetually lost. The child was always looking to the mother or the parent for their identity, for their worth. When they get in other relationships, they're probably going to feel deeply inadequate because no matter who they're in a relationship with, and I'm not talking about Brian Laundry specifically, but any relationship where there's this type of dependency,

they're not going to measure up to, right? They're not going to be seen the same way by their partner as they would by their mother. And I think this is a real issue for Brian Laundry in the sense that Gabby Petito is undoubtedly more popular. She's more socially competent. I think in some ways, Brian Laundrie's hiding behind her as a type of shield to kind of mask his own inadequacy and his own incompetencies, right?

And she's more gregarious. She's more social. Some of her friends talked about how they couldn't believe she was with him and that, you know, I don't think they use the term loser. I think one of them may have, but that he was a bit of a loser. compared to her. And this is kind of what you see. When you have parents that foster this kind of dependency, you know, it's simply impossible to be in a relationship where your partner, or in this case, Gabby, is going to feel like she's an equal or Brian Laundry is going to feel as if he has

some worth because she's not his mother. She's not going to treat him like that. She's going to treat him with more as an adult. She's going to have more expectations. You're just not going to see the same level of interaction that you would with the mother. And so I think the problem for somebody like a Brian Laundry in a relationship with somebody like his mother is that he's going to feel perpetually inadequate in any relationship he's in. And he's especially feeling perpetually inadequate with Gabby Petito because she's quite popular. He's very gregarious.

She's on this adventure in her van, taking some risks. That's something that he doesn't seem to do. He doesn't want her to go on this trip. I think he's afraid that potentially she might become very popular with her Instagram posts and our social media, and that eventually she'll reject him. And so I've speculated that, in fact, I think that may have what happened here,

is that she was getting attention, and she was, this trip was going well for her. And I think she was thinking about leaving him because he was becoming very controlling. We saw in the body cam footage that you and I analyzed. Yeah, the Moab body cam footage. Yeah, for those who haven't seen it, you know, if you get a chance, go back and take a look at that.

But we talked about you can see where he becomes extremely controlling. From a psychological standpoint, that type of control, I think, really stems from this type of dependency I'm talking about in the sense that when you become really dependent, on another person, especially on, you know, in this case, you become dependent on your mother for your identity and for so many other elements in your life that I think it really creates a sense of inadequacy and probably even a sense of helplessness in the sense that you feel like you can't do things on your own, that you feel like you're not autonomous, you're not capable

of solving your own problems, and that your mom has to do it for you or your parent has to do it for you. And so I think the control, in this case, with Brian Laundry, the control is really a response to that sense of helplessness and inadequacy. And more than anything, I think that the control is an attempt to prevent her from rejecting him. And again, you know, when you have a mother like this that you can't upset no matter what you do, rejection's not on the table. But that's not true in a normal relationship. And Gabby Petito is a reasonably healthy person. person and she wants a normal relationship. She doesn't want some, I presume, she doesn't want somebody that's completely dependent. She doesn't want to be another mother to this guy.

It reminds me of how Colby expressed how Lori DeBow, Lori DeBow, then was really upset that he got married and it was very hard for her. It's reminiscent of that bit. Yeah, that's a good point. Colby made a decision to, you know, Getting married is a clear separation from a parent from a mother. And right, Lori was extremely upset when Colby made that decision because she was no longer his number one relationship. I think Lori really saw Colby as sort of a substitute husband of sorts.

But Brian Laundry obviously didn't get to the point where he was going to, I'm sure he wanted to probably marry Gabby. But my guess is Gabby had a lot of reservations for the reasons we're talking. about. There's two components to the letter. There's the part that Roberta wrote by herself, and then she quotes from Romans 838. So the second part, I'll read it, but it's apparently a quote from the Bible. I think she interprets it a little bit, but the first part is her. So I'll just read the first part, and then I'll read the second. So this is from Roberta. This is directly her. I want, 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 would or could ever divide us. No matter what we do or where we go or what we say, we will always love each other. 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. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your reentry. If you say you hate my guts, I'll get new guts.

Remember that love is a verb, not a noun. It is not a thing. It is not words. It is actions. Watch people's actions to know if they love you, not their words. That's the first part that she wrote. The second part is actually a quote. It is apparently, I'm not familiar with Romans 838,

but she says this is from Romans 838 extended version. She quotes it. She says, quote, Therefore, I am certain that neither dead. death, nor life, nor angels, nor the ruling spirits, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers from above, nor powers from a blow. Nothing in the entire created world can separate our love. Neither hostile powers nor messengers of heaven nor monarchs of earth.

Nothing has the power to separate us. So that's from the second part. That's Romans 838. and then she ends with this. Nothing can separate us, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not threats, not even sin, not be thinkable or unthinkable,

can get between us, not time, not miles and miles and miles. Right, so the main issues are dependency, as I've just mentioned. I mentioned the word of meshment that I think there's an amassed relationship here. I've used this quote before, so people that have heard this bear with me,

but let me deferred. fine ameshment so that people can get a better sense of what that means in a family. So oftentimes we talk about, I talk about families being a mesh, but that's also true of subunits within the family or what we call subsystems. In other words, a parent, so a mother and a son can have an amassed in a mesh relationship, even though the family may not be as a meshed. So, but we'll talk about that in a minute and how it applies to the situation. but I'm just going to read a definition or a description of a meshment that I think is really good.

This is from a textbook called Family Therapy. It's the fourth edition. It's by Irene Goldenberg and Herbert Goldenberg. This is page 195. A meshment refers to an extreme form of proximity and intensity in family interactions in which members are over-concerned and over-involved in each other's lives. In extreme cases, the family's lack of differentiation between subsystems makes separation from the family an act of betrayal.

Belonging to the family dominates all experiences at the expense of each other's self-development. Whatever is happening to one family member reverberates throughout the system. A child sneezes, his sister runs for the tissues, his mother reaches for the thermometer, and his father becomes anxious about sickness in the family. So using that definition, I think there's a lot of amesishment going on here between the mother and the son, between Roberta and Brian. The definition points to the lack of differentiation. Again, the mom says nothing could ever divide us. That's a lack of differentiation, right?

That if he were to develop his own identity, that she would probably see that as a type of betrayal. that's very common of a mesh families. Belonging of the family dominates all experiences at the expense of each member's self-development. Again, we see that here, that the mom doesn't want him to develop. The mom wants him to be an extension of her. She sees her son as essentially a version of her,

and she doesn't want him to develop his own identity. And again, that becomes a real problem. And when you become an adult and you're trying to establish your own life and develop your own unique relationships and you have a mother like this, it's really, really hard to get the same type of emotional needs. You know, the same type of unconditional love and the same type of your emotional needs met from a normal adult relationship. because in this case, I'm sure Gabby Petito simply is not going to see him in the same way that Brian's mother sees him. When making financial decisions, one of the most important things to me is knowing exactly where my money is going when it comes to saving and investing.

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You tell me, because you always get different interpretations than me, but I don't, if someone hates me, I don't go change who I am. I still love them no matter what. You know, kids can say that too. I hate you. I never say, well, then I'll go change myself. I say, well, I will still love you. I am who I am.

I can't help that, but I will still love you, you know. Yeah, it's a complete lack of boundaries in the sense. A normal response here is if you say you hate my guts, let's talk about it. Let's talk about why you hate my guts. Let's talk about your emotions, right? Let's communicate about it. Don't go change your guts. You don't go get a gut transplant.

It's the antithesis of healthy communication. It's the antithesis of healthy boundaries. It's the antithesis of a healthy process in a relationship to work things out. So, yeah, you don't just change. change your guts. I mean, and again, it's not giving him a voice. Yes. If she's always changing her gut, let's use that metaphor. If he hates her guts and she changes her guts to appease him, then she's not giving him a voice. He has no voice. And I think that's part of the problem here. That's one of the reasons he's so controlling is because he just, he's lost. This guy doesn't know who he is.

Well, it also implies in relationships he thinks that people should change. Can you imagine what he wanted Gabby to do to change into? It also makes you realize, you know, when you're in a healthy romantic relationship, you don't ask each other to change. You can get irritated each other. I mean, John loves my ADD and how I always remember where my keys are, right? John, John never gets irritated when I lose my phone ever, I swear. Well, I'm sure you would wish that that wouldn't be something that comes with being me.

You never say, you know, go change. I mean, you know that I can't change it either. It just... Right. It's just you accept it. You don't go change your job. You can be irritated. You can accept it.

You can accept it and still even be a little bit irritated too, you know. Right. You talk about it. You accept it. You talk about it. You realize it's part of the person's identity and behavior. and part of their habits, and that's the way it is. And so you live with it.

You don't try to change your guts to try. Right. And I can't go change what makes me me. I can't change that issue about me. And when you're in an abusive relationship, you do expect more. You're like, you know, you have to change. You have to bend. You have to become something different to suit who I am.

So it also just makes me think, gosh, I can't imagine the relationship you had with Gabby, too. that's what he expected of her. You know, that domestic violent relationship where the Moab police pulled them over and I'll say it, and I think in my mind significantly failed, Gabby, because it was pretty clear to me. You know, that started because of, according to Gabby, she didn't like that things were dirty or, you know, I don't know.

There was those little moments, and I can't imagine how intense those moments became that. Yeah, yeah. Little moments among couples trying to learn about each other. Right. One of his complaints was that she put her shoes in the van, right? I mean, like little, little nitpicky type things.

Like, who cares, right? But, I mean, if he's upset about those little things, imagine what he's feeling about larger issues, like the fact that she's getting a lot of attention. Right. Like the fact that he can't control what she's doing, that she's in charge of this trip, you know, like all that stuff just clearly it was driving him crazy. Right. Anything else you want to point out? Yeah. The other part of the letter that I thought was very interesting was this idea of the unthinkable.

So it's at the very end. So it's part of the nothing can separate us, not hatred, not hunger. But she says nothing can separate us, not the thinkable or unthinkable. And again, I think that would be evidence that this was written after the murder. because a murder, for a mother, I would imagine a murder would be unthinkable. And so for her, that would have been unthinkable. I think that's part of the problem here is that she doesn't understand the repercussions of having this type of relationship with her child. The reason you get to the unthinkable in this case, the reason you get to that

is because she doesn't have the awareness to see that letting her son develop his own identity and allowing him to become himself are the most important elements of parenting. At least I think for us, we have a five-year-old that is trying to figure out who he is and we're doing everything we can to help him, but he's still very dependent, but he's five. So, you know, at five, you're going to have a different set of needs

than you are at 15. And so using that analogy, I don't think that anything changed for Roberta Laundrie here between the age of five and 15. I think Brian was older and more mature, but I think their relationship was essentially the same amashed dysfunctional relationship. Okay. So I think one of the tragedies here is that she doesn't think the unthinkable because she's so

enmeshed in this relationship and she can't see what she's doing. Where does Brian's dad fit in all this? Yeah, so that's a great question. You know, unfortunately, I don't know a lot about the dad. So this is going to be, let me just preface this with, this is going to be rampant, speculation about the family because we just we don't know that much about the family and i can only speak from experience about similar family dynamics and that's what i'm going to speak to so i'm not even really going to speak specifically to the laundry family but so let me back up a little bit in

answering that question and let me say that if you want to create a domestic abuser the best way to do that would be to put a child in a home with domestic violence. Right? So like you, I'm not suggesting this, by the way. This is merely hypothetical. But if you want to, if you want a child to become an abuser later in life, the way, the best way, the easiest way you would accomplish that is to put a child in a home where there's a lot of violence between the parents, probably specifically between the father and

the mother or the partner between the spouses, whatever that relationship looks like, because the child's going to learn that that's how parents interact, and the child's going to learn that that's how parents solve problems, especially if it's a male, if it's a boy, the boy is going to learn that if he wants to get his way, he needs to exert a certain amount of violence. However, and this is debatable. So is it possible that there was violence between the parents and the laundry home, maybe, but it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem that likely.

So let's say that Brian grows up in a home without violence. So then we would take that off the table. The next way you can create, the next best way to create a domestic abuser is to grow up in a home with a lot of male entitlement. If you put a boy, a male specifically in a home where he is led to believe that men are superior and you give him this sense of mal entitlement

that men are entitled to whatever they want, essentially, and that women are somehow inferior, now you're starting to create the conditions for domestic violence. Now, in the laundry home, we know the relationship, or we have a pretty good idea of the relationship between Roberta and Brian, and it seems to me that not only is their dependency, but I think there's probably a good likelihood here that there's a lot of male entitlement.

And the reason I come to that conclusion is because there is another sibling. It's a female. And during this whole saga, she seems to have been kind of behind the scenes. She's rarely talked about right now. Maybe that's intentional. But let me just put it like that. It's not hard to imagine that in a family like this that Brian is the favorite child. He's the darling.

He's the golden child. He's the boy. He's getting most of the attention from his mom. I don't think the mom is intentionally neglecting the other sibling who's her daughter. But I think inadvertently, she is. And so I think here you're creating a dynamic in this family with probably a great deal of malentitlement, now privilege, and that he's seen this. He's seen not only the way he can kind of interact with his mother to get what he wants,

but that he's favored. So I think that's also probably a contributor here to what eventually happens. But the other side of that is I think, and again, this is speculation, but my guess is the father looks a little bit passive to me. Could be wrong, but he doesn't look like a particularly strong male figure in this family. and again, that would potentially send the message to someone like Brian, that he is a powerful male in his family or maybe even more powerful than his father. And that would, again, that would kind of ramp up that sense of male entitlement.

Well, let me ask you this, though. Don't sometimes mothers connect extremely to a child when they're being abused to. Like there's abuse in the home and there's a reason she's, I mean, wouldn't it also imply that her relationship with her spouse isn't very close? either and that there might be emotional abuse there too. That's actually something I think about is, you know, why does, why is she so desperate for this absolute connection with her son? Is it because she's not feeling a deep connection or relationship with her spouse?

And in that sense, I wonder if there is an abusive relationship among the parents as well. Yeah, that would sort of fit the first premise I talked about. Again, if you wanted to create an abuser, put them in abusive home. So, yeah, the abuse, and to answer your question, I don't know. We don't know for sure. I don't know what that relationship's like. I'm speculating. There's a couple of ways I think you can get to murder here in this family for Brian Laundrie.

And certainly the father could be emotionally abusive. It doesn't even have to be physical, but which would then potentially create this emmeshment between the mother and the son, between Brian and Roberta. So, yeah, that's one option. I think the father also might just be really passive and kind of ineffective as a male leader in the home. And maybe the mother's turning to Brian because he's a boy. and she sees him as being potentially,

I don't know, potentially more of a parental figure than the father. So quite possibly Brian could be a little bit parentified, although, you know, the lack of identity might speak against that a little bit. But, yeah, I think there's quite a few scenarios that probably need to be in place to kind of create the conditions for this murder. Yeah. Makes me wonder then to, Gabby lived with the family for a time. How would Roberta then look at Gabby?

You'd think, if anything, that was a big part of the confusion with how they wouldn't talk about it is, why would you not love this girl who was not only your son's girlfriend, but also someone that lived with you? How would that equate or how would they think of Gabby? Well, I think Roberta would see her as a competitor to some degree. I mean, she would never say that, but I think it's quite possible that that's how she perceived Gabby. Yeah, and right, competition. Yeah, I noticed people were asking questions about Murdoch. Yeah, you know, the families that are matched have many similarities.

So I think there are some parallels with the Murdochs, although, you know, one major difference is that Brian is the only male figure in this family. So I think with the Murdox, Buster was kind of the favorite, and Paul sensed that and rebelled. Whereas here, I think Brian is quite clearly the favorite, and so he really takes on the sense of mal-privilege and mal-entitlement. And, you know, obviously that becomes a problem in his relationship with Gabby. Obviously. Which actually shows just what this does. You think it's harmless or it's just a strange. relationship, but you see the intergenerational right here. And now Brian is an abuser,

or not now, was an abuser and killed his, killed his girlfriend. And now they're both dead because of this intergenerational trauma. And it just continues. The cycle continues and continues. It's also worth mentioning, by the way, that, you know, it's one thing to be in a dysfunctional family. It's another thing to commit murder. Right. And so one of of the symptoms or one of the consequences, I think, of being in this type of relationship with, like, Roberta, is that there's a lot of anger. There can be a lot of anger. It could be repressed, but there could be a lot of anger because he senses that his mother is not letting him spread his wings. His mother is not letting him be himself and she's not letting him be this autonomous

entity that he wants to become, to become a healthy adult. And so I think, you know, You know, not only do you get this deep sense of inadequacy about not knowing who he is and really not being capable of solving his own problems because his mother's always jumping in for him, but I think you get this anger. You know, it's more unconscious, but you get this anger about not letting him live his life. And I think that anger is part of the reason that you get the result you get here. So, you know, he, again, it might be. more unconscious, but he's taking out a lot of that anger on Gabby.

I guess there's a transferential relationship where in some ways Gabby is kind of picking up the sins of his mother. And he's angry towards mom. And when Gabby makes demands on him or expectations that he can't meet, he's angry at her. Okay. I have a question for you then. You just, I agree.

So someone wrote, you know, she has an ex. where he was almost abandoned by his mother. His mother didn't give him the time of day. He hates his mother, thus is why she thinks he hates women. But on the other end, you have this attentive mother who's like, we are the same person, whatever you need. And that also creates this resentment towards women because his mother was controlling. You know, I was trying to find the connection between these two sort of seemingly

opposite things, but that helps make sense to me. Right. It's always the combination of these elements always creates conflict. It's that conflict that creates the turmoil. And this is kind of a Freudian idea, by the way. But if you see mental health as in some ways a reduction of inner turmoil and some search for relative harmony among our different competing parts of ourselves, then it becomes problematic.

when we can't get rid of that turmoil, when that turmoil just seems to escalate and to boil up and over, right? That's when it becomes a problem. And if you get to the point where you have this massive amount of malentitlement and you have this deep-seated sense of inadequacy because of all these dependency issues

and maybe attachment issues, there probably is an insecure attachment there. You know, if you're not trying to resolve some of that or you have no awareness of it, it can spy we're all out of control, especially when you get in a relationship with someone like Gabby, who is popular and gregarious and well-liked. And, you know, he's trying to exert some control over her, but he's failing because she's on social media and she's getting all these positive comments and she's probably getting a lot of interest from other people, other men. Right. And so,

So I think this really presents a dilemma for him in terms of how he can manage that turmoil. And obviously he didn't manage it well. But that's, again, we're trying to explain how do you get from this type of family and this relationship with his mother to murder? What I find fascinating is people are bringing up the Wagner's, people bringing up Chris Watts, a day-bell case, on and on and on. what I'm finding here is there's a pattern that this type of family dysfunction and dynamic leads to many different types of crimes and we can find this type of system or a mesh system

in many crimes. Am I right? Like I keep seeing this and this and then this family annihilator and the Ephraim father who killed his entire family and, you know, It's just on and on. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. I think some of the main elements are just this utter lack of self-awareness and this underlying anger. There's got to be some capacity for violence in all these cases. You know, we know that Brian Laundry was attracted.

He loved the book Lullaby, and he loved the Fight Club was one of his favorite. The Fight Club is a book that's a tribute to violence. And so, you know, in all of these cases, I think you have to put these elements together to kind of get to the type of violence we're talking about. But Brian Laundrie was almost certainly a really angry guy. And that wasn't completely obvious. He didn't necessarily come across that way. In fact, in the body cam footage, he's actually overly compliant. He's like overly obsequious to the police.

I said in my analysis of the body camp footage I thought that was clearly an act. That's what he's doing with people. With Gabby, he's going to show his anger. With everyone else, he's not going to show his anger. Yeah. One last question. You know, we assessed his, Brian's last letter here on Hidden True Crime,

the suicide letter he wrote, which is that he loves Gabby so much, you know. Yeah. Any final thoughts seen Roberta's letter to him, you know, now seeing that suicide letter, any connections, anything there? Is that a whole other show? I think you're seeing the other side of the coin. Yeah. I think the suicide letter, I think that I kind of mentioned this earlier, but unfortunately

Gabby is an impossible situation. She's in a no-win situation because she's never going to love him like. his mother loves him. And so she can't win. Whatever she does, it's going to be inadequate. And he's going to feel inadequate because he wants that type of love. He wants that type of dependency.

And he's used to that. And Gabby's not going to give that to him. So I think his suicide letter is sort of the other side of the coin. That's what you get when you have a family with this type of dynamic. Right, everyone. Thanks, everyone. And we'll see you next week. All right. Take care.

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