#391. Just Jacob

“Jacob wasn’t like the normal boys and girls.” said Mrs. Abernathy, his 3rd grade teacher.
“He didn’t seem to enjoy the company of his classmates.” posited Mr. Keegan, Jacob’s 6th grade science teacher.
“You could tell he was smart, but he didn’t want anybody to know it.” Ms. Richardson thoughtfully recalled.
“It came to the point where I thought he was faking his everything he said, his interests, even his emotions.” Dr. Hinrich, his 12th grade Psychology teacher, added.
I was tasked with the story of revealing the truth behind the world’s most infamous criminal, Jacob Shultz.
I took the job because I thought it was going to be easy. I was tired and dealing with a lot. I didn’t have time for a messy story. I just wanted to have a few more high-profile pieces under my belt before I quit, so I could actually have a resume.
I thought it was a story that we had all heard before. Deranged kid with no outlet and access to an arsenal. One day he snaps, and we have another sad story Americans can have nightmares about for a week.
The parent interview went as expected. Even though Shultz was adopted, there was no love loss. His mother said the typical things, “he could never do something like this,” and “you guys have it all wrong.” I thought it was just a mother protected her baby boy. But after the teacher interviews, she started making a little more sense.
They all painted a picture of Jacob, a progression of his personality. As a kid, he was dismissable and abnormal. He just didn’t quite fit in. As he got a little older, he started to distance himself, realizing that he wasn’t like everyone else. He went from distancing himself to straight up seclusion, refusing to be something he wasn’t. As he got a little older, however, he figured out that he had a problem. So he reinvented himself. He faked being a normal person.
I began to realize that Jacob Shultz couldn’t be the dangerous menace that the press made him out to be. He was developing empathy and sympathy. He was doing the best he could to adapt to society.
That was my theory, but I wasn’t planning on running an article went against the grain. All I wanted to do was keep my head above water until I built up the courage to quit.
But then I found a small orange notebook that changed everything.

