2/12/2012
Horrific: After Billie Jean Hayworth defriended a 30-year-old woman, Jenelle Potter, on Facebook, Potter’s father went to Hayworth’s house and murdered her and her fiance, sparing their baby, who was found unharmed in his mother’s arms. Hayworth, 23, and Billy Payne, 36, were both shot, and Payne’s throat was slashed.
One of the investigators says that there had “been bad blood” between the two families for some time, with confrontations in real life, including an altercation at a grocery store, but what triggered the murders was the act of severing ties on Facebook.
I cannot fathom homicidal rage over a Facebook blocking, but it’s not the first time that a Facebook defriending has inspired criminal retaliation. Last year, an Illinois woman set fire to a couple’s house after being defriended.
Facebook crystallizes the dynamics of our friendships and social interactions — bringing them a clarity that can be measured by clicks, visits, and comments. Having our social interactions brought into that level of focus means that a relationship that might have once ebbed over time naturally through avoidance and ignored phone calls can instead be cut off in a dramatic and confrontational way. Perhaps laying bare the end of a relationship in such a deliberate way means an intensified emotional reaction for those involved, or a sense of finality that one wouldn’t usually get. (When I blocked an ex-boyfriend on Facebook years ago, he was angrier about that than at any other point in our breaking up.)
For it to escalate to this level of retaliation, though, is horribly tragic. I suppose the lesson here, if there is one, is not to defriend/block anyone on Facebook who strikes you as potentially homicidal. (Or better yet, don’t friend them in the first place.)
