Free Defending Jacob by William Landay

at 9:01pm on April 15th, 2007
Have to call you out on that Jake. You’re not the FB police, esp the way things went down. you shd keep your head down & be quiet.
John Marolla (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 8:51pm on April 15th, 2007
WTF? JB what are you mouthing off here for? go die. the world would be a better place. go f*ck off & die.
Julie Kerschner (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 8:48pm on April 15th, 2007
Not cool, Jacob.
Jacob Barber (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 7:30pm on April 15th, 2007
Maybe you all haven’t heard—Ben is dead. Why are we still writing him messages? And why are some people acting like his best friend when you never were? Can we just be real here?

    I stopped at Jacob’s name—at the realization that these last venomous messages were aimed at
my
Jacob. I was not prepared for the reality of Jacob’s life, the complexity of his relationships, the trials he went through, the brutality of the world he inhabited.
Go die. The world would be a better place
. How could my son have been told such a thing and never shared it with his family? Never even let on? I was disappointed not in Jacob but in myself. How could I have left my son with the impression I did not care about such things? Or was I being a wimp, overreacting to the exaggerated, hopped-up tone of the Internet?
    I also felt like a fool, honestly. I ought to have known about all this. Laurie and I had talked with Jacob only in the most general way about what he did on the Internet. We knew that when he went off to his room at night, he was able to go online. But we had some software installed on his computer to prevent him from looking at certain websites, porn sites mostly, and we felt that was enough. Facebook never seemed particularly dangerous, certainly. Also, neither of us wanted to spy on him. As a couple, we believed that you raise a child with good values and then you give him space, you trust him to behave responsibly, at least until he gives you reason not to. Modern, enlightened parents, we had not wanted to be Jake’s adversaries, quizzing him about every move, hectoring him. It was a philosophy shared by most of the McCormick parents. What choice did we have? No parent can monitor his kid’s every moment, online or off. In the end, every child leads his own life, largely out of his parents’ sight. Still, when I saw the words
Go die
, I realized how naive and stupid we had been. Jacob did not need our trust or our respect as much as he needed our protection, and that we had not given him.
    I scrolled through the messages more quickly. There were hundreds, each just a line or two. I could not possibly read them all, and I had no idea what Sarah Groehl wanted me to find. Jacob disappeared from the conversation for a long stretch as the messages got older. The kids consoled one another in maudlin messages (
we will never evr be the same
) and hard-boiled ones (
die young, stay pretty
). Over and over they expressed their shock. The girls protested their love and loyalty, the boys their anger. I scoured these endless repetitive messages for some worthwhile detail:
i cant believe this … we have to stick together … there are cops everywhere in school …
    Finally, I clicked over to Jacob’s own Facebook page, where a hotter conversation was still simmering, this one from the immediate aftermath of the murder. Again, the messages were displayed in reverse chronological order.
Marlie Kunitz (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 3:29pm on April 15th, 2007
D.Y.: Do NOT say things like that here. That is GOSSIP and it could get people HURT . Even if it’s a joke, it’s stupid. Jake, just ignore him.
Joe O’Connor (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 3:16pm on April 15th, 2007
Everyone shd all just keep their mouths SHUT if we dont know what we’re talking abt. that means you derek, you tool. this is SERIOUS SHIT here. NFW you shd be talking out of your ass like that.
Mark Spicer (McCormick Middle School) wrote at