Dad makes tearful plea to see deceased son’s Facebook ‘Look Back’ video

NEW YORK (TRP) – A mourning father’s plea to Facebook to see his deceased son’s biggest moments has been answered.

John Berlin of St. Louis, Mo., uploaded a video to YouTube this week, making a plea to Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team to gain access to his son’s profile. His son, Jesse Berlin, 22, passed away on January 28, 2012. The video went viral on Reddit and PIX11 News helped connect the father and Facebook.

In the 1 minute, 24 second video titled “My appeal to Facebook,” John Berlin fights back tears as he explains why he is sharing the video.

“You ever do something crazy because you just don’t know what to do anymore?” he asks. “Well that’s what I’m doing right now.”

After seeing the video on Reddit, PIX11 News reached out to Facebook regarding the video.

Initially Facebook told PIX11 that they had been looking to contact Berlin and wanted to make the video happen.

“We have people working on it now,” Facebook spokesman Jonathan Thaw told PIX11 Wednesday evening. Facebook had a phone number for Berlin, but hadn’t been able to reach him. PIX11 then provided Facebook with four telephone numbers it had found in its research for Berlin.

John Berlin of St. Louis, Mo., uploaded a video to YouTube this week, making a plea to Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team to gain access to his son’s profile. His son, Jesse Berlin, 22, passed away on January 28, 2012. The video went viral on Reddit and PIX11 News helped connect the father and Facebook.

Within 20 minutes, PIX11 received another phone call from Thaw saying they contacted Berlin and his wishes were being granted.

“The video will be ready either tonight or tomorrow morning,” Thaw told PIX11 News.

Berlin told PIX11 that he was amazed that creating the video worked.

“I thought I’d just give it a shot,” Berlin said.

Berlin also said that Facebook is now looking into helping other families who have lost loved ones.

The 62-second “look back” video notes the year you joined Facebook, then shows a handful of your most-liked posts and a seemingly random selection of your photos — all set to instrumental music. To see yours, go to Facebook.com/lookback.