Sarah Groehl

Sarah Groehl is a McCormick student whose brief, cautious encounters with Andrew Barber reveal how much the students know—and how little they want to tell adults—about Jacob Barber and Ben Rifkin. First noticed during the school’s improvised security screening because of the message on her sweatshirt, she later gives Andrew information about rumors, a knife, a fight, and the teasing Jacob endured, then sends him to Derek Yoo for more. Her disclosures make her an early link between the investigation and the school’s unspoken knowledge, but her guardedness keeps that link incomplete.

Identity and Introduction

Sarah first appears at the school entrance, where police are inspecting students and their belongings after Ben’s murder. A cop has objected to the “F-C-U-K” lettering on her sweatshirt and treats it as forbidden under the school’s improvised rules. Sarah argues that it is a clothing brand available at ordinary malls, and refuses to surrender an expensive garment for disposal. The dispute is a small but telling collision between a student’s insistence on her own judgment and an anxious security performance imposed on the school.

When Andrew arrives, Sarah is still negotiating with the officer. The sweatshirt makes her memorable: later, in an interview, Andrew recognizes her as the girl from that morning. Her introduction therefore gives her a concrete connection to the school’s response to the killing before she becomes a source of information about the students themselves.

Encounters with Andrew

During the student interviews, Sarah enters the office and sits opposite Andrew and Paul Duffy, making a conspicuous effort not to acknowledge them. When Paul identifies Andrew as the assistant district attorney in charge of the case, Sarah says she already knows him: he is Jacob’s father. The exchange places the investigation’s formal authority beside Sarah’s personal awareness of the family at its center. Andrew, in turn, remembers the sweatshirt, linking the two encounters.

Sarah’s later conversation with Andrew takes place at a Starbucks in Newton Centre, where she has been using a MacBook and listening through earphones. She removes them when he arrives, appearing sleepy and slow to shift her attention from the computer. She explains that she had brought information forward because children were talking while the adults in charge seemed unaware. Yet she is wary of being drawn into the case: she says she does not want to be involved, and Andrew recognizes that she is not telling him everything.

Before she leaves, Andrew gives Sarah his business card and writes his personal cell number and email address on the back. He tells her she can contact him and that he will do what he can to look out for her. Sarah accepts the card, looks down at her hands, and notices the black ink on her fingertips from the day’s supposedly voluntary fingerprinting. She hides her hands by crossing her arms, then asks Andrew whether he is ever the bad cop. The gesture and question leave her alert to both the ordinary pressures placed on students and the power Andrew holds as an investigator.

What Sarah Knows

Sarah tells Andrew that students had been talking about Jacob having a knife and about Jacob and Ben having a fight. She stresses that she is passing on what children were saying, not claiming that these facts made Jacob a murderer. She also reports that Ben had been teasing Jacob for a long time, while resisting the stronger adult framing of the situation as bullying. In her account, the teasing was commonplace, not an exceptional event: children called Jacob gay, a geek, and a loser, and, she says, such treatment moved from one student to another.

When Andrew asks who was responsible, Sarah answers that it was just kids—everyone. Her answer widens the picture from a dispute between two boys to a school environment in which hostile labels circulate collectively and may be treated as routine. At the same time, her insistence that it was not a big deal cautions against treating her account as a complete explanation of Jacob’s experience. She supplies relevant context but does not claim to know what it meant to him.

Sarah tells Andrew that Derek Yoo knows more than she does about the matter. She describes Derek and Jacob as having been close since childhood and expects Derek to want to help Jacob. This recommendation redirects Andrew toward Jacob’s closest friend, establishing Sarah as a limited but useful guide through the student relationships surrounding the case.

Narrative Role and Significance

Sarah’s scenes expose a gap between official procedure and informal knowledge. The school searches students and fingerprints them, while the children have already heard rumors about a knife, a fight, and the history between Jacob and Ben. Sarah’s information does not settle what happened; instead, it changes the investigative picture by showing that the adults’ apparent ignorance has a social cause. Students know things, but speaking openly risks involvement in a case that has already made their school a place of scrutiny.

Her role remains deliberately bounded. Sarah offers Andrew what she believes he should know, but signals reluctance, distinguishes teasing from bullying, and points him elsewhere when the inquiry turns toward deeper knowledge. The card, the ink on her fingertips, and her question about being the bad cop frame her not as a full account of the school’s secrets but as a young witness negotiating trust, exposure, and the authority of the adult asking questions.