Vern Tessio

Vern Tessio is one of the four boys from the short story The Body and the film based on it, Stand By Me. He is friends with Chris, Gordie, and Teddy. He is portrayed by Jerry O'Connell. He along with his friends search for a missing dead body of a kid named Ray Browers in Castle Rock, Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 1959. Vern is overweight and is the shortest out of the group. He seems to be the closest to Teddy Duchamp, although he gets picked on by him at times. Unlike his group, Vern seems to have a positive relationship with his parents but is bullied by his older brother named Billy, who is a part of "Ace" Merrill's gang. Vern dies in a house fire after a party in 1966, six years after the novella is set. In the movie he doesn't die, where it says he found a job in construction, eventually getting certified as a forklift operator. Vern also got married young, and this marriage produced four children.