As I’ve said twice now, I asked Brenae if she wanted to initiate formal sexual harassment proceedings with the college. She said only after she projected the video on a wall on campus. I said no deal. Students rarely consider the legal implications of what they do, but I have to. Our program can’t survive expensive public lawsuits.

What measures did the school take to make sure that students don’t carry firearms to campus?

We don’t allow firearms. I heard of Brenae’s Packing project about halfway through the week she was making it. I contacted her immediately and told her that she could never bring the weapon to campus or it would be confiscated and she would be suspended. She agreed, in writing. I can have my assistant show you the contract. I asked her once what she did with the gun after she completed the project, and she told me she’d sold it back to the gun dealer. I had no idea she stored it in her studio until she shot herself.

When did you learn of her death?

The day my staff discovered her. I won’t forget that day for a long time. The school has been very impacted by her loss. Very impacted.

She may have been in her studio for an entire day and night before she shot herself. Do you find it unusual that no one would notice this?

Our student artists often retreat to get their work done. Frankly, they like to binge on isolation. It’s part of their process. So, no, it would not come off as unusual.

She wrote “Watch me” in a note on her laptop. What does that mean to you?

I don’t know. It sounds like a dare. The language. It’s provocative.

You don’t think it’s in reference to the erased files or to the sexual situation she revealed on one of them?

Brenae made some fine artworks in her life. Maybe she wanted people to watch them all.

Do you have any further thoughts about Brenae Brasil that you would like to share?

My heart goes out to her family. I’m very sorry for their loss. And I’m very sorry for ours.

7

INSIDE THE CASE FILE THE next morning, I half expected to find lurid photographs of Brenae’s dead body, like I’d seen from TV crime shows, but if there had been photos, our source hadn’t included them. Instead, I encountered pages and pages of forms in a tiny font. Dates, times, locations, numbers. A lot of numbers. Even the paramedics who’d been called to her studio had had numbers assigned to them.