After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 88

July 22, 1993. 2:04 PM.

Violent. Angry. Aggressive. Sociopathic. Inhumane. Cruel. Thoughtless. Unhinged. Terrifying. Ruthless. Selfish. Incapable of empathy. Monster.

These were only a few of the choice words of witnesses who took the stand to testify against Jack. Teachers, coaches, family friends, other children, concerned parents, victims of bullying, classmates, teammates, fellow playground-goers. And the list would surely go on in the coming weeks.

All in all, the vast majority of these witnesses only ever knew Jack for a moment in time, and had nothing more than a brief snapshot into his life. Nonetheless, they got up on the stand, and with Barnes' guidance, shared one-off stories about how Jack terrorized them and/or their children.

A parent at Jack's old elementary school described how Jack knocked her child to the ground and repeatedly struck her with a tree branch while a friend of his watched and laughed.

His second grade teacher talked about kids going home scared because seven-year-old Jack promised to come to their houses at night and suffocate them with their own pillows if they didn't give him the toy he wanted before he finished counting to three.

His little league coach shared the horrific memory of trying to get Jack away from the child he beat with a baseball bat for costing their team the win. Both the coach, who he struck in the adult's attempt to help, and the beaten child required hospitalization.

A former friend of the Merridew family explained that his own children woke up screaming in the night from the horror stories Jack told them about a monster that possesses parents to murder their own children while they sleep.

Former students of Bainbridge Military Academy described incidents where Jack and Roger would dowse themselves in fake blood and bang on other kids dorm rooms making false claims about escaping a serial killer roaming through the building.

Even kids who attended Jack's elementary school with him in Dalton back in the day recounted cowering in the halls from Jack and his delinquent, bully friends.

The stories the members of the court heard that first week made Jack look as psychotic as Roger. It screamed only-a-matter-of-time until Jack committed a crime violent enough to end the life of another.

Barnes continued to make a spectacle about the people Jack targeted; mostly smaller, younger kids who couldn't stand up for themselves. Just like Simon Bennett, she didn't hesitate to point out. But there were even older kids and adults in the mix of victims, evidence that not even those of a larger size had the prowess to scare Jack Merridew.

For the most part, these were all incidents Evan and/or Paige knew about. Although, it was uncanny for the girl to hear the stories aloud, one after the other, day after day. By Thursday, Barnes was dredging up incident reports; documented evidence that proved the stories witnesses stood before the court and told. The number of exhibits just against Jack and Roger combined were at least half of the total so far.

Jack was starting to guess at the probability everyone else would get acquitted, except for him and Roger. They were the only two who had treacherous track records of violence and antagonism, and it would be easy for Barnes to suggest that Jack and Roger were the ones who led the others to kill Simon. And with Piggy's death on top of that, what chance did they really have of coming out of this scott-free?

The rest of that afternoon was long and tedious for everyone in the courtroom. Many of the other boys' parents had shocked looks on their faces, as if they couldn't believe a child roughly the same age as their own could be capable of such cruelty.

Jack himself should've had a harder time sitting through all the testimony this week, but Jack was more used to being shit on than anybody. His own father punished him in unruly ways at the time of these alleged incidents. Dana Barnes was surely trying to make Jack feel bad or guilty or something, he knew. But what she didn't know was that hearing strangers talk bad about him didn't scare Jack, or even invoke any real emotion from him.