G029 - Leverett, Zoe[/DECEASED]

[Namira]

DECEASED


Name: Zoe Leverett
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Drawing, digital art, graphic design, classical mythology, The Daily Chum.

Appearance: Zoe Leverett is a girl of above-average height and slim build, standing 5'7" and weighing 130 pounds. She has high cheekbones, a pointed chin, and an oval-shaped face. Her eyes are small and hazel, her nose is long and thin, and her lips are full. Her strawberry blonde hair is combed straight and falls to her shoulders, and her bangs are carefully cut. Most days, she wears rectangular glasses with thin black frames, though she only needs them to read small print. Zoe wears makeup very infrequently, though sometimes applies light eye shadow on days when she does not wear her glasses. She has a fairly pale complexion, with traces of freckles on her cheeks and arms.

At school and home, Zoe dresses plainly, preferring t-shirts in muted colors (especially navy and Prussian blue). She wears blue jeans and black Converse All-Stars. She carries an unadorned black messenger bag that usually contains her sketchpad, pencils, and tablet. At interviews and meetings about her art, she usually wears a white button-down blouse and long black skirt, and occasionally comes to school wearing such an outfit if the meeting is right after the school day ends.

On the day of the abduction, Zoe was wearing a faded navy shirt with a small, stylized gray crown on the front. She was wearing her jeans and Converse All-Stars, and had her glasses on.

Biography: Zoe Leverett was born on April 18th, 1994. Her parents are Tim Leverett, a database manager at SEIU's Seattle local, and Meghan Leverett, an elementary school teacher. She has one sister, Lauren, who is two years older than Zoe and currently attending Carnegie Mellon University. Zoe has little contact with her extended family, both her parents having moved to Seattle from upstate New York in 1988.

As a child, Zoe was intellectually curious but socially shy, preferring to stick to a small group of friends and reluctant to make new ones. She got along well with her parents and especially her sister, coming to admire Lauren greatly. Zoe would occasionally try to change her hairstyle to match Lauren's or ask her mother to buy her clothes like the ones Lauren wore, though this trend faded as Zoe entered middle school and high school. Lauren, for her part, welcomed Zoe's admiration. Noticing Zoe's relative shyness, Lauren often invited her to socialize with her and her friends.

Zoe was a quick learner in elementary school and always received good grades. Additionally, Tim Leverett encouraged both his daughters to learn how to use computers at a young age, buying them educational software and even teaching them basic Java programming during summers. Both sisters enjoyed these early lessons, though Lauren showed more of an interest and talent in computer science than Zoe as the programming moved to more advanced topics.

For her part, Zoe developed a strong interest in drawing during middle school, teaching herself principles of composition and anatomy. Words and social interactions always having come difficult to Zoe, she quickly grew to appreciate the idea of communicating ideas non-verbally. Talking to fellow students came much easier, she found, when her art could serve as a conversation starter: if she had her sketchpad in front of her with a finished piece on the current page, her classmates would sometimes look at it, compliment it, and ask her about her drawings. Being able to respond to questions about a topic where she had expertise was much easier for Zoe than initiating conversations and making small talk.

During 8th grade, Zoe's mother suggested she learn digital image editing, and bought her a copy of Adobe Photoshop for her 14th birthday. Zoe took to the program, becoming skilled at manipulating photos and adding effects to her physical drawings. These skills led her to join the Daily Chum as a graphic designer, where she has worked for all four years of high school. Zoe is known to other staff at the Daily Chum as quiet and workmanlike, following instructions from editors efficiently but rarely contributing ideas of her own.

Zoe's art before high school showed little in the way of unified themes, largely consisting of practice pieces meant to teach herself artistic principles or how to use Photoshop tools. However, towards the end of her freshman year, Zoe started to incorporate mythical themes into her work. She had read D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths and Edith Hamilton's Mythology many times as a child, and had been fascinated by the stories within.

Accordingly, Zoe started to include figures from classical myth in her art. Initially, this was limited to Greco-Roman mythology, though she quickly began to read about other mythical traditions and expanded her work to include characters and scenes from them. By the second semester of sophomore year, Zoe's work had converged on the theme of mythicizing the modern and mundane. She might depict a modern character in heroic ancient clothing, or mix elements of the two in a single figure. Her final project for her sophomore year art class, for example, was a large drawing of a professional football game, parts of the scene fading into a depiction of a Roman gladiatorial melee.

Zoe's passion for her art began to color her ways of speaking. Though typically quite reserved and slightly nervous in social situations, she often finds herself lapsing into grandiose descriptions and classical allusions when discussing art (particularly when describing what she intended to convey with her own). She is largely self-conscious about this way of speaking and tries to cut herself off if she starts, for fear of appearing pretentious or bizarre.

Throughout Zoe's sophomore and junior years, she attempted to submit her work to contests and galleries, as well as to convince her parents to allow her to apply to art schools and art programs at universities. Neither effort met with much success: she was often too self-conscious about her work to promote it properly, and her parents stressed to her the importance of a college degree that could lead to stable employment. They encouraged her to continue her artistic pursuits as a hobby but study computer science in college like her sister, which Zoe agreed to.

Zoe's artistic struggles led to the development of persistent self-doubt, as she still wanted to turn her art into a career but questioned whether she was talented or passionate enough to do so successfully. Additionally, she wanted to make her parents happy and, when Lauren was accepted to Carnegie Mellon's prestigious computer science program at the end of Zoe's sophomore year, follow in her footsteps. She decided to devote less time to developing her own art and more to academics and her work at the Daily Chum. Her grades, which had previously averaged in the B range during early high school, improved to a mix of mostly A's and B's as she spent more time applying herself.

The summer before she left for Carnegie Mellon, Lauren began to notice Zoe's changing academic priorities. While initially pleased with Zoe's decision, this quickly gave way to a sense of unease that Zoe was sacrificing her own passions in order to be more like her sister. Lauren and Zoe had a long conversation in which Lauren asked Zoe what she really wanted to do with her life and Zoe, afraid that a different answer would disappoint the sister she looked up to, insisted that following in her father's and Lauren's footsteps was what she wanted. Lauren seemed to consider the subject settled, and has not had any significant conversations about Zoe's academic and career pursuits since.

In May of 2011, however, Zoe met Maximilian Sawyer after the latter noticed her working on a piece and struck up a conversation. They discussed her work and the fact that she was unlikely to pursue it professionally, and Max quickly encouraged Zoe not to give up. He offered to use his family's financial resources and connections to get her work exposure, eventually formalizing the relationship as one roughly analogous to agent and client.

Max's efforts quickly paid dividends. Since the summer of 2011, Zoe's art has been featured as part of exhibits showcasing young artists in Seattle, spotlighted by local newspapers and blogs, and even featured as part of Elevate Yourself, a 2012 promotional campaign by a Seattle-based vitamin water company. Based on this success, Zoe spoke to her parents again about the possibility of studying art in college, eventually convincing them to let her apply to Reed College in Portland. She was accepted at Reed in the spring of 2012.

During the summer after they first met and started working together, Zoe and Max became close and soon began dating. Zoe was grateful for Max's efforts to help her pursue her passions, and was drawn to his brash, confident demeanor. In interviews about her art, she has expressed admiration of people who "live their own myth", a category in which she likely includes Max.

The relationship between Max and Zoe soon grew into an unhealthy one, however. Max often makes offhanded jokes at Zoe's expense, and has reacted angrily when Zoe has expressed offense and asked him to stop. They became sexually involved soon after dating, which Zoe has always consented to but has felt somewhat uncomfortable about. Moreover, Zoe often feels unwelcome and condescended to at posh events that Max invites her to, which Max sometimes attempts to console her about afterwards but rarely puts a stop to as it happens.

Due to Max's hostile reaction upon being confronted about his belittling jokes, Zoe often finds it difficult to communicate with Max and will remain silent about her anxieties. She often worries that tying herself to Max and his corporate sponsorships means she has sold out an is an inauthentic artist, or that her allusion-filled way of speaking during interviews will reflect poorly on Max and embarrass him. However, due to a combination of her unwillingness to communicate and Max's emotional inattentiveness, he very rarely becomes aware of these worries.

Zoe has a hard time judging whether her relationship with Max is healthy or not, and so prefers not to think about the subject much and pretend that the situation is largely okay. She reasons that since Max has helped her so much in pursuing her artistic dreams and has never physically abused her, any complaints she has about his behavior must be the result of her own paranoia and oversensitivity. Still, after incidents where Max's verbal treatment of her is particularly abusive, she often finds herself wishing she could stand up to him, or that somebody else would notice and do so on her behalf.

Zoe is fairly socially isolated. She was close to Lauren and a number of her friends back when they attended Aurora, but since their graduation she has had few close friendships. This largely stems from her social anxiety: people who try to befriend Zoe find she can talk readily about her own art, but as the topic of conversation gets farther from the visual arts, she becomes more reserved and awkward. Most of her current social contact is with Max, and with the occasional person he introduces to her who likes her art and wants to meet her.

Advantages: Zoe is unassuming and non-threatening, and unlikely to strike anyone as a threat or schemer. If she manages to meet up with Max, she could potentially rely on his protection.
Disadvantages: Zoe has slight social anxiety and suffers from bouts of depression and self-doubt. Her relationship with Max may also hurt her, either through acts of abuse he commits on the island or through association with the poorly-liked boy. Her physical condition is mediocre, and she is unaccustomed to spending much time outdoors or performing physical activity.

Designated Number: Female student No. 029

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Designated Weapon: Machete
Conclusion: G029... you have 'snap case' written all over you. If I were your loverboy, I would keep both hands over my crotch. - Jim Greynolds


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