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Biography: Jack Swanson, Victim's Boyfriend
 

BoyfriendJack Swanson was born to Jim and Lydia Swanson in Corinth, Mississippi on August 9, 1975. His father taught chemistry at the local high school and his mother was an accountant at a small company in town. Firmly middle-class, Jack was raised without lacking very much, but he was by no means spoiled. His parents provided a typical middle-class upbringing to the young boy - bicycles and BB guns for birthdays and trips to camp in the summer.

In high school, Jack was a decent student. Neither excellent nor poor, he made his way through his classes without much effort. His teachers would remark time and time again that Jack could achieve excellent grades with just a little effort, however, he wasn't interested. In fact, the main reason why he signed up for drama class in the first place was that he would be able to miss a few days of class each semester when the play was performed for the various elementary schools in the area.

Initially skeptical of getting up on stage and acting, Jack kept reminding himself of the time out of class he would earn. There were also a few attractive girls in the cast as well, so that made the first few rehearsals more tolerable. However, as the preparations for the play continued, Jack found that he enjoyed being on stage more and more. He enjoyed the spotlight and the attention. When he spoke his lines, the whole auditorium was quiet, simply focusing on him.

Over the next couple of years of high school, Jack participated in the school play each year, ultimately earning the lead role his senior year. He harbored some aspirations of attending a major school, probably somewhere in New York while honing his acting craft. Unfortunately, Jack's lackadaisical effort in class prohibited him from ever getting into a big-time acting school. He settled on attending Ole Miss where he could get a little distance from his parents and yet still be close enough to home.

His career at Ole Miss was not much more distinguished than his high school career. Jack skipped as many classes as he attended and muddled through his coursework. Even his performance in drama classes was sporadic. Some days he would be extraordinary, acting out roles from Mamet and Shepard. Other days, he would be dismal, almost lost, on stage. Jack's inability to really work kept him from succeeding in the drama department.

After five and a half years, Jack finally graduated from Ole Miss. Without a real job, he remained in Oxford, working here and there. His parents continued to support his acting aspirations, although they wished that Jack would buckle down and put more effort into it. He very rarely seemed to look for work, choosing to wash dishes or work construction rather than aggressively pursue acting work.

His major part came when a friend who was working construction for the film A Time to Kill managed to procure for Jack a role in one of the riot scenes. Jack was thrilled about the opportunity until he learned that he would only be an extra and that a KKK costume would make him totally unrecognizable.

So Jack mainly drifted from odd job to odd job. He seemed to spend most of his time hanging around the square. It was while drinking an iced coffee on the porch at Square Books that he met Zoe Chase. He'd read her columns in the paper and started chatting with her. They soon began dating, although many people felt like their relationship was based purely on sex. Zoe's dating habits bothered Jack, although he liked the freedom himself when it suited his purposes. Some friends seemed to notice an increase in Jack's attention to Zoe when she signed her book contract, although Jack repeatedly said that he loved her and the timing was just a coincidence.

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