Andy Barber

**Andrew "Andy" Stephen Barber** is one of the main characters of the Apple TV+ limited series, *Defending Jacob*. He is portrayed by Chris Evans.

## Story

Andy Barber is the father of Jacob Barber. When Jacob was accused of murder, Andy was left with the near-impossible task of being both an assistant district attorney and a father who must defend his son.

Once Jacob was accused, Andy was forced to bring in a different lawyer to defend his son in Joanna Klein. Andy felt he could trust Joanna but occasionally overstepped his boundary as the lawyer in him came out.

As Andy was not a lawyer for Jacob and had been taken off the Benjamin Rifkin murder case, he was allowed to take matters into his own hands and clear his son's name.

With Andy's thoughts turning to Leonard Patz, he felt the need to continue investigations into the sex offender. These investigations included a talk with Matthew McGrath, an alleged victim to Patz who Andy believed may have more of and involvement in Patz's activities than was previously thought. Matthew contacted Andy and agreed to meet him, where he shed more light on his involvement with Patz.

With more evidence against Patz, Pam Duffy got a search warrant from Lynn Canavan to investigate Patz' house. This gave Andy a sense of relief that his son may not need to go to trial and that his family might be able to go back to normal. A knife was not found at Patz's house and this led to Andy taking matters into his own hands by pursuing Leonard once more, including ramming the back of his car.

As the case with Patz dried out, Jacob went to trial leaving Andy to second-chair Joanna during the proceedings. During the trial, many things were revealed about Jacob's activities including his computer possessing pornography and images of violence. Furthermore, stories of Jacob's activities on online forums relating to Ben Rifkin's murder came unexpectedly to light from Derek Yoo. This cast a big doubt in Andy's mind, leading him to directly question Jacob as to whether he committed the murder.

During the trial, it was revealed that Patz hung himself and left a note to the Rifkin family that he murdered Ben. This caused the case to be dismissed and relieved the Barber family. Wanting to move on from this, the three decide they want to move out. Andy visited Lynn and Middlesex County Courthouse to collect his things before moving for which Lynne tried to convince Andy to stay but to also tell him that the case against Patz was finally resolved after encountering complications.

Feeling unnerved by this, Andy visited his father in prison once again where Andy pieces together that William hired James O'Leary to kill Patz. This meant Jacob may not be an assessment. With this, and he wanted to move away quickly and started to make those preparations with Laurie and Jacob.

Before they left, they decided to go to Mexico on their preplanned holiday. Here, Laurie was very content and Jacob met a girl called Hope Connors. Things were going smoothly until Hope went missing not long after Jacob had attended a party with her. This made Andy and Laurie very distressed, especially when Andy revealed to Laurie that Patz did not kill himself thus not proving Jacob's innocence.

Upon returning back to their home, preparations to move house were accelerated but Laurie, according to Andy, was like a ghost. While Andy prepared the house to move, Laurie took Jacob to get his hair cut where Laurie questioned him on whether he killed Ben and she became very distraught. With this, she accelerated rapidly, crashing into a wall. This left Jacob in a coma and Laurie also in hospital. Andy had tried to contact Laurie during this but received no response.

Flashing forwards, Neal Longudice questioned Andy as to whether this was intentional by Laurie to try to kill herself and her son. Andy maintained this was an accident and that is what the court concluded. Upon visiting Jacob and then Laurie in hospital, Andy returned to the Barber home alone and sat on Jacob's bed.

## Behind the scenes

* Chris Evans previously worked with Jaeden Martell in *Knives Out*, which was filmed just prior to *Defending Jacob*.