The Real Brian Laundrie

Nicole Jeffords (2021)

This drawing of Brian Laundrie shows the 23-year-old as a smiling, harmless, rather innocent-looking guy. It’s a good drawing with a strong likeness. However, the real Brian Laundrie, the one who disappeared without a trace after returning to Florida without his fiancée, Gabby Petito, is no harmless individual. His face, in this drawing, shows humor and kindness, and those traits might truly be part of Brian’s psychological makeup; however what I “see” when I look beyond the bones, is attentiveness (as in attention to details), a grim kind of patience, a tendency to manipulate, a pent-up, accumulated bitterness. This is a person who wants things to go his way. He seems authoritative and in charge, an individual who’d do well in an emergency, or out in the wilderness.

But looking closely, I can pick out other traits: the need to be right, the need to be in control, and these traits, of course, led to the tragedy of Gabby Petito’s death, a tragedy that caught an entire nation’s attention and led us all to become fascinated with the story of two young people who claimed to love one another but, as they traveled west in their little white van, succumbed to argument, backbiting, and doubts about their relationship. This guy, whose face at first glance looks thoughtful and kind, totally lost it, and, from what we can glean, strangled his spirited young fiancée who’d begun a fight with him over housekeeping and the neatness and cleanliness of their van, which was their home away from home.