Gwen Briley-Strand has broken her silence on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 about the photograph that may show her brother’s final moments.
Briley-Strand, 72, said that Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old sound engineer at Windows on the World, is the man widely believed to be the subject of Richard Drew’s “Falling Man” image. The outlet photographer captured the shot at 9:41 a.m. And 15 seconds on September 11, 2001, showing a man plunging head-first from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The image became so controversial that newspapers including the outlet pulled it from circulation within days after readers found it too painful to view.
“There are times when it feels like 25 years but, then again, there are times when it feels like yesterday,” she said. “It’s a wave of grief. Some years are better than others.”
Briley-Strand revealed that her brother had been ordained a deacon just six months before his death and grew up playing gospel piano. He also suffered from asthma. She said he had spent the week before the attacks on holiday in Florida with her and her husband, joining the trip at the last minute. It was the final time she saw him.
The identity of the Falling Man remained unresolved for years. A Canadian journalist initially linked the image to Norberto Hernandez, a pastry chef at Windows on the World, after Hernandez’s sister recognized the clothing. But Hernandez’s devout Catholic family rejected the theory, insisting he would never have jumped from the building.
Esquire writer Tom Junod later reopened the investigation and discovered that Drew’s camera had actually captured a sequence of 12 frames. In later shots, the man’s shirt blew open to reveal a distinctive orange T-shirt underneath, a detail that ruled out Hernandez, who did not own one. Junod instead identified Briley as the most likely match, noting he stood 6 feet 5 inches tall, wore black high-top shoes, and was known to wear an orange T-shirt beneath his work uniform.
Briley’s widow packed away his clothes not long after his death, meaning it has never been possible to confirm what he wore that morning.
Briley-Strand rejected the view held by some religious families that those who jumped from the towers committed suicide, saying she does not believe faith condemns them.
“I believe that all those individuals that jumped were caught. Their spirits were caught,” she said, adding that she thinks of her brother as representing the roughly 3,000 people who died that day.
No official list of those who jumped from the towers was ever compiled, with New York’s Chief Medical Examiner classing all deaths as homicides. Estimates of how many people jumped range from around 50 to more than 200 over a 90-minute window, with almost no photographic record of who they were.
Briley was the middle of five siblings. One of them, Alex Briley, was an original member of the Village People.
The photograph itself is now reportedly held in the private collection of Sir Elton John, who has previously called it “one of the most perfect photographs ever taken.”
Briley-Strand said that she still watches the anniversary coverage every year.