Beat The Drum - Katie's Final Hours


	Katie's Final Hours This 21 year old Philadelphia male was the last person to see Katie alive, sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning, June 29, 2003, in Philadelphia. I later learned that our local police had contacted the Philadelphia police to get the status of the investigation as soon as they heard about Katie’s death, only to learn that there was no investigation. Nor was I able to prompt them to conduct one by submitting all of the details, complete with a photo of my adorable daughter. Well, things work differently in Philadelphia. Life is cheap there. There are many things I did not learn until after Katie was gone, unfortunately. Apparently, Katie had driven her 21 year old "boyfriend" (also the "boyfriend" of other under-age girls) to a nearby hospital, where he "admitted himself" for treatment for heroin addiction "for the sake of his baby". (HOW could he do this, when I was unable to get help for my beloved 16 year old daughter?????) Katie's father had called me about 2 weeks prior to Katie's death, saying that he was concerned about Katie. She'd spent 2 days lying in her darkened bedroom. I attributed this to her late night hours. After her death, we learned that she'd also spent those 2 days throwing up. Unfortunately, neither her father nor I were aware of this fact. Had we known that what was happening was that she was going through heroin withdrawal, we could have taken her to an emergency room & then she surely would have qualified for intensive, inpatient treatment. But, without knowing about the vomiting, both of us assumed that it was related to late-night hours or depression. For the last 2 weeks of Katie's life, she seemed much better. Much more up-beat. She'd attended school the last 3 days of the year. This was the first time she'd gone to school in months. She'd actually sat down with her guidance counselor and plotted what she would need to graduate on time. She came home all excited, with paper for summer school, begging me to sign her up and pay the $300 fee. Gladly, I assured her that I would take care of all of this. She'd also spoken to her field hockey coach, brought home her equipment and talked excitedly about the upcoming season. Her father attributed these changes to the effects of anti- depressant medications finally kicking in. This made sense to me. What we did not know, was that she had gone through heroin withdrawal by herself (neither she nor anyone else shared this with us) and that was really the reason for the noticeable changes in her behavior. Unfortunately, her "boyfriend" had gotten out of rehab and her first "reunion" with him cost her her life. She'd "toughed it out" on her own when she couldn't get heroin, but as soon as he was back in her life, her life was over. And, he is STILL out there, preying on other under-age suburban females, because, in the city of Philadelphia, it's no big deal. Not even enough to warrant an investigation. Yep, that's "life in the big city"! Obviously, had this happened in Bensalem it would have been vigorously investigated, as it should have been in Philadelphia, where violent crime is up and arrests are down.