Brian Laundrie’s sister Cassie broke ranks and spoke out on Monday, saying she ‘didn’t know’ if her fugitive brother had murdered his girlfriend Gabby Petito and claimed that their parents refuse to talk to her.
She also said she is ‘livid’ at her parent’s lawyer Steve Bertolino, who told the press Friday that Cassie saw her brother twice since Petito’s disappearance – on September 1 and 6 – despite her previously telling ABC’s Good Morning America, ‘I haven’t been able to talk to him. I wish I could talk to him.’
Cassie was seen confronting a group of protesters, which had rallied outside her home since Bertolino’s statement three days ago and interrogated her about them on October 4.
‘I am losing my parents and my brother and my children’s aunt and my future sister-in-law on top of this and you’re not helping,’ Cassie told them.
Cassie Laundrie refused to defend her brother Brian’s innocence in the murder of Gabby Petito and claimed that their parents refuse to speak with her. She is seen above with her husband James Luycx in an interview with protesters outside her home on October 4
Brian’s sister said that she is ‘livid’ at her parent’s lawyer Steve Bertolino, who told the press Friday that Cassie saw her brother twice since Petito’s disappearance – on September 1 and 6 – despite her saying otherwise in a previous interview
A protester asked Cassie if she thinks her parents were involved in Petito’s death, to which she said, ‘I don’t know. We have literally been finding out everything from the news like everyone else.’
Asked if she would you like your brother to turn himself in, Cassie says, ‘Of course.’
At one point, she is asked, ‘Based on all the stuff on the Internet, do you think that Brian killed Gabby?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
Cassie also said that she has never seen Brian hit Petito or act violently toward women.
Cassie cleared up the timeline of events from her perspective, confirming that Brian left his and Petito’s west coast trip around August 17 to come back to Florida, shortly after the couple was pulled over by police in Moab, Utah.
She spoke to protesters who remained outside her house since the lawyer’s statements, which contradicted media reports that Cassie hadn’t seen Brian. Above, Brian and Petito were in an Instagram photo on their cross-country trip on June 26
Cassie said that she has never seen Brian hit Petito or act violently toward women
Chris (back) and Roberta (front) Laundrie, parents of Brian Laundrie, left their North Port, Florida, home. Cassie said she does not know if they were at all involved in Petito’s death
Laundrie’s parents were under surveillance from the FBI
Cassie saw Brian on September 1, but he came to her home in the family Mustang and not the van he and Petito had been driving. She also saw him at a family vacation September 6 at Fort De Soto Park, but said that Petito’s name did not come up in conversation and she didn’t know Petito was missing at the time.
‘We had s’mores, we had dinner. We had our kids there. Nothing came up. We’ve told the FBI everything and the world does not need to know what the FBI knows. That’s why we’re silent. This is me coming out against them.’
Cassie claimed in an interview with ABC’s Good Moring America on September 17 – two days before Petito’s body was found in Wyoming – that she had not spoken to her brother since September 1 and that she ‘wish[ed] I had more information’ to give investigators.
Her version of events unraveled Friday, when Dog the Bounty Hunter – who joined the manhunt for Laundrie – revealed he had received a tip about Cassie joining her brother and parents at the Fort De Soto Park campsite.
When Bertolino told reporters Friday that Cassie saw Brian after Petitio’s disappearance, she appeared caught in a lie. Cassie told the protesters that her children didn’t know their Aunt Gabby was dead until the demonstrators screamed it outside her home and called her a liar.
She claimed on Monday that the media ‘misconstrued’ her words about when she had last seen her brother, and that she meant she has not been able to talk to Brian since he went missing.
A plane flew overhead Cassie Laundrie’s home on October 4 with the message ‘Justice 4 Gabby – tik tok times up.’
Protesters told Cassie and Luycx that they gave the group what they wanted and that they wouldn’t be coming back
Protesters also congregated outside fugitive Brian Laundrie’s Florida home on September 27, chiding his parents for not aiding police in the search for their son
She says in the video, ‘I’m in the boat where I’m getting ignored by my family and thrown under the bus by my family’s attorney . . . I am livid and I’m not speaking to anybody. I’m done because that made my kids find out this horrible way. We were waiting until there was some kind of closure so the kids were just sad instead of sad and worried and now scared of you guys.’
Asked for comment from NewsNation, Bertolino said, ‘I do not represent Cassie Laundrie. Cassie’s comments can only be attributed to the press twisting my words and hers, which were only given to clarify prior mischaracterizations by the press, with the hopes of further sensationalizing this tragic story.’
Cassie spoke to the group for about 20 minutes and said she was bound to get in hot water for doing so, but she needed to stop the protests from upsetting her children.
‘This is not what we want to be doing,’ she said. ‘This is not how we want the world to find out when we’re angry and upset. But I can’t have my kids be crying for three days in a row.’
Luycx said, ‘The sooner he is found, the sooner this is over for us.’
‘We would like to give [Brian Laundrie’s] nephews an answer to when they can see their grandparents again,’ said Cassie Laundrie’s husband, James Luycx. ‘When you know, [they can] see their uncle or anything that. He was their hero.’
At the end of the video, the protester said that Cassie and Luycx gave the group what they wanted and that they wouldn’t be coming back.
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