Twins learn of teen brother's death on Facebook

Put yourself in their shoes.

They are twins. It's the morning of their 20th birthday. So they log on to Facebook, expecting to find messages from well-wishers.

Instead Angela and Maryanne Vourlis discover posts that read "RIP Chris Naylor" and "RIP Bobby." It took more than a few seconds for them to realize that their 17-year-old brother was the "Bobby" to which the posts referred.

According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the twins saw the RIP posts and tried to call their brother.

They then called their mother.

(Credit: CC Benstein/Flickr)

"I rang Mum and said: 'Chris Naylor must have died--I just read it on Facebook. But where's Bobby? People are writing 'RIP Bobby' too," Angela Vourlis told the Telegraph.

But Mrs. Vourlis knew that Bobby had been out with Chris Naylor. The family then called the police in order to discover the truth.

Bobby was one of three teens who died when their car smashed into a pole in heavy rain on the Great Western Highway at Colyton, near St. Marys in Sydney, Australia.

Bobby's uncle Peter Matelis told the Telegraph: "It's every parent's worst nightmare to lose a child in a car accident, but to have to hear it on Facebook, then have to chase up the police yourself, is just horrifying."

The police claim they had trouble identifying the victim. But the family saw the Facebook posts six hours after his death around 3 a.m. Sunday.

While everyone has now come to expect that social networks have become the most immediate and regular ways in which many people communicate, there are some experiences that no-one ever imagined would play out through sites like Facebook.

[myles taylor]

That's so sad. It's where Twitter and Facebook really go overboard. I don't blame them, I blame us, the users.

[wowza3]

How exactly is this going overboard? To me this is shoddy police work, no fault of facebook or the users at all.

[T_Hoff]

@wowza3

You can't accept that just maybe the police did have a difficult time identifying the victims?

[tm_anon]

@T_Hoff

If Facebook users already knew who the victims were, don't you think the police should've at least had a clue?

@wowza3

It's possible there was a different reason for not notifying the family but, if that's the case, they should never have claimed it was simply due to difficulty identifying the body.

[manualfunky]

police actually need physical proof when it comes to identifying bodies... not just the words of people, even if those people are absolutely sure that it was Bobby in the car.

[pjhenry1216]

@manualfunky: yea, but they can follow up on leads.

[josh3io]

that's messed up.

[ObsceneZen]

I don't think there's any reason to blame Twitter/Facebook for such things. They are simply the fastest ways to communicate with a large audience. Sad as this incident is, Facebook did its job right.

[Hammerhand]

Can't blame anybody over this, really. You can't expect the police to use something with the speed of social media to help them notify next of kin. You can't blame facebook - or it's users - either.

It's a tragedy that lives were lost. It's horrible that family members had to find out about their brother/son's death that way. But it's not facebook's fault that they died in an accident.

[motherbaer]

This happens all the time. Surprised it even is of interest in a story. Authorities can only speak to the immediate family, after determining - for certain - the identities. Anyone who sees, hears or otherwise knows - just phones, or callls, tweets or texts. Its human nature to relay news!

[Crow120]

I can understand the anger of hearing that a loved one died from someone other than the authorities. At the same time I understand that the authorities want to make absolutely certain that the identity of the deceased is 100% before they notify a family. Imagine the police informing you that your son has passed only to find out 24 hours later he is okay and the family that was comforting you were the ones who lost someone. It'd be horrible and that's why they wait sometimes.

However they heard it they have my condolences. Loss is never easy.

[gwailo247]

Exactly. You need positive ID on a body, and if everyone in the car dies, that becomes hard to do.

What probably happened is the police called the registered owner of the car, who was probably one of the kids parents. The officer probably also told the owners, off the record, that everyone in the car died. Then you have the normal reaction from the family, and the kids, for whom sending a message to all their friends is just as natural for me or you using the phone, spread it to the internet, and then it just goes from here.

Maybe the parents knew who their kid was with, maybe not. Maybe they wanted to make sure before waking up random parents during the night asking if their kid was home. Last thing they wanted to do, even if they thought of it in shock, would be to put other parents through this pain without even knowing for sure.

[pjhenry1216]

They've called in folks without 100% certainty before. That's why they have the whole "Is this your (son/daughter/etc)?"

[Dan7637]

dont blame facebook, blame the people who announce it instead of letting the family know

[jmonty--2008]

It's obviously tragic but the real tragedy in their lives is that their son died, not how they found out about it. The method of discovery caused pain but really there is no great way to find out such a thing.

[dcfc91]

What ever happened to having some respect for the deceased and their family members. Those who posted should have waited for some acknowledgement from the family, i.e. having the sons page turned to memorial page before posting anything. That poor family, what a horrible way to find about the death of your child or sibling.

[pjhenry1216]

If I found out a friend died, I'd assume the family knew before I did. Also, I don't think pages being turned into memorials are that common that you should expect it.

[Mr. Dee]

I found out about the death of an old high school mate the other day through Facebook too, its a very strange experience. You are immediately filled with mixed emotions, choked up, confused trying to understand, how can you just read the persons recent post a few days ago now he's dead.

[timcoyote]

Any communication medium delivers good news as well as bad. I'm sure there was a day when people got mad if you found out that someone died over the phone instead of it being delivered in person, but I don't think anyone would find that unusual. Like everyone, I frequently find old friends on the internet, sometimes, you find them dead.

[jamiemanalili]

I think it's a great thing that they found out as soon as they did, even if it was facebook. I don't think it's often that you turn on the tv and they advertise every single minute just in case the parents of ALL of the cases of deaths come around for them to find out. At least they found out with a great support group of family and friends. Granted maybe they could have physically called, but some may think to not inundate them with such calls.

[blurble]

I thought twins were psychic!

Gues they need facebook news feed after all.