ONCE-CONFIDENT TEEN COULDN'T HANDLE HEROIN

Sean Haubrich, 17

[PHOTO CAPTION] Sean Haubrich Photo by Chris Pedota

[SIDEBAR] `Sean was like the Calvin cartoon. ... He was spoiled and I would
let him get away with a lot.' -- Anne Stifter, Sean's mother

ROCKAWAY TWP. -- Sean Haubrich and his girlfriend, Michelle Rastiello, were
voted as having the nicest eyes in the eighth grade at Copeland Middle
School in 1996.

It's the eyes Anne Stifter remembers as she sifts through photo collages of
her son, the blue eyes dancing with mischief in a snapshot of him and a
friend baking cookies at home one afternoon.

It was those eyes that stared up at her on March 25, 1998, from his
17-year-old body laying in the closet of a friend's attic bedroom.

Dead of a heroin overdose, Haubrich is remembered by friends and family as
a teenager with a wonderful sense of humor, who loved fast cars and riding
dirt bikes, was "a yuppie in training" and doted on a younger, handicapped
brother. He was also a young man who had learned how to lie and steal from
family and friends to support his heroin addiction.

"Sean was like the Calvin cartoon," his mother said. "He was spoiled and I
would let him get away with a lot."

Haubrich was the youngest of three boys and for years was accustomed to
being the baby of the family. Haubrich had whatever he wanted and didn't
deny his expensive tastes. He craved the latest styles from Nautica, Polo
Sport, Timberland and Adidas. Whatever he ended up doing in life, he always
said he'd have to make lots of money.

On the dresser next to his bed, the stylish colognes Haubrich chose from
each day were still where he'd left them -- Polo, Cool Water, Escape and
Tommy Hilfiger.

"He took longer than me to get ready," his girlfriend said. "He would take
like an hour shower and brushed his teeth with an electric toothbrush. He
wasn't conceited. He just wanted to look his best."

Stifter separated from Haubrich's father when he was 2, and the family
struggled financially for several years while Stifter worked two jobs to
support her three sons. Until she remarried and had Ryan, now 9, Haubrich
spent a lot of time with his mother, who chauffeured him to BMX races or
friends' homes. Haubrich didn't have much contact with his father.

`Never resented' handicapped brother

Haubrich had a rough time dealing with his status change when Ryan was
born, Stifter said. Ryan, who is severely handicapped, required Stifter's
almost constant attention, and Haubrich's time with her was drastically cut.

"He never resented Ryan. He resented me," she said.

Haubrich and Rastiello played with Ryan each day after school. Before
Haubrich left for school most mornings, he and Ryan watched Barney
videotapes together in his room, Rastiello said.

Haubrich's playfulness was what Rastiello missed after he began using heroin.

The two began dating on Halloween in the eighth grade. They celebrated
their third, and last, anniversary in 1997 by playing at a role reversal --
with Haubrich dressed as a cheerleader, wearing a blonde wig, and Rastiello
as a football player with lamp black streaked under her eyes. The two took
Ryan out trick-or-treating and then spent the evening at Haubrich's house,
where his mother threw a party.

"He brought me a dozen red roses," she remembered, almost losing her
composure as she fingered Haubrich's silver necklace, which she never takes
off.

Rastiello was the first person Haubrich told about his heroin addiction, in
early October 1997. He only admitted to it after Rastiello dogged him for
several weeks about his constant sleepiness, mood swings and unusually
overprotective behavior.

"He wanted me to be with him every day. He didn't like to go out and didn't
want me going out with other people," Rastiello said.

She also questioned him about why he no longer had any money. He asked to
borrow money for his mother's birthday gift and Rastiello asked where he'd
spent all his money. He became upset and begged for money, she said.

Crash kills sibling, fire destroys home

At school, Haubrich always had been a mediocre student who enjoyed
socializing more than studying. But as his heroin addiction worsened, he
began failing classes and stopped hanging out with his friends. Rastiello
pressured Haubrich to tell his mom about his addiction and, by the end of
October 1997, he did.

Stifter had noticed her son's tiredness, but she attributed it to sleeping
pills he'd recently been prescribed for insomnia. Haubrich had been
struggling with depression and sleeplessness after his oldest brother,
Joseph, died in a car accident March 30, 1995. Four months after his
brother died, the family was dealt a second blow when their Cherokee Avenue
home was destroyed in a fire sparked by an electrical problem in the kitchen.

Haubrich was home when the fire started and got so panicked that he leaped
out his window when he could've walked out the door like the rest of the
family.

Alerted by Morris Knolls High School counselors that he was acting out at
school, Stifter brought her son to counseling in April 1996. Two months
later Haubrich was put on antidepressants.

No one in Haubrich's family really dealt with Joseph's death, Stifter said.
Haubrich never talked about his brother's death, Rastiello said, and only
began to open up shortly before he confessed to his heroin problem.

"He said how much he missed him and how he looked up to Joe. They both
liked racing cars and Sean said he wished they could still be together,"
Rastiello said.

When Haubrich finally broke down and told his mother about heroin, Stifter
brought him to St. Clare's Hospital/Boonton Township for detoxification.
Haubrich refused to stay longer than three days and, since he was over 16,
he signed himself out. He promised to attend an intensive outpatient
rehabilitation program but never did.

While Haubrich once had been known by friends and family as obsessively
meticulous -- from the yellow model car placed just so on his dresser to
the "No Fear. Live Free or Die" poster perfectly centered over his bed --
he became increasingly sloppy. Two days after Christmas, Stifter found
empty heroin bags in the bathroom. Stifter threatened to bring him to the
emergency room and he responded with lies, she said, admitting to using
once a week or only on weekends.

"Sean felt he didn't need the rehab and would not take drugs again. I
believed him. However, by this time he was already using again," Stifter
wrote in a contract she had him sign in late January 1998 after he failed a
drug test at school and was kicked out. Signing the contract as "Sean
Haubrich, The Addict," he agreed to stop using drugs, seek counseling and
submit to drug tests.

"He always had to be in control of things," Stifter said. "This was the
first time he came up against something he couldn't handle. He was so sure
he could handle it."

Yet Stifter knew what could happen, writing in the contract, "In addition
to the constant lies and stealing, the following situations very possibly
could or will occur: 1 - Sean could die from one bad bag of heroin. 2 -
Sean could die by an accidental overdose."

Stifter thought she could handle his addiction if she controlled his money
supply and kept track of his every action.

Stifter realized too late, however, that Haubrich was using heroin daily.
Though Haubrich told her he first bought from people at school, Stifter
said he would later routinely accompany someone to Newark.

According to worksheets Haubrich filled out after he was detoxified at St.
Clare's in October, he wrote that he'd started using heroin when he was 15.
"I am having a lot of mixed feelings. I'm thinking about why I'm here, how
bad my life is getting messed up, how I really want to lose all drugs. I am
thinking about my family, my girlfriend, friends."

"I'm mad inside," he continued. "I want to leave and I don't want to change."

One of Haubrich's best friends, Matthew Maitilasso, 16, of Rockaway
Township, was shocked when he heard the level and length of his friend's
addiction.

"We knew he experimented, but when he went to rehab, I thought that was the
end of it," Maitilasso said. "I think there were a few reasons why he
started. He wanted to escape some of the things going on -- his brother
dying, the house burning down, problems at school."

Though Haubrich tried to keep his habit a secret, close friends Maitilasso
and Kevin Dolan said they did notice his weight loss, pale skin and sunken
eyes. Because they didn't use drugs, Haubrich never talked to them about
it, Maitilasso said.

"When we heard he overdosed it was like, `Where the hell did that come
from?'" Dolan said.

Similarly, Haubrich's former boss said he and co-workers were dumbfounded.
Haubrich worked part-time as a dishwasher at the St. Francis Residential
Community Center from December 1996 to October 1997.

"He was a typical teenager," Brian O'Donnell said. "He did a fairly good
job, got along with everyone -- adults and other kids -- and was real polite."

But O'Donnell and others noticed Haubrich called in sick almost once every
two weeks until he quit.

This past February, Haubrich stopped seeing his private doctor. He ran up
$3,000 in cash advances on his mother's Discover card to support his habit.
When Stifter found out about the stolen money on Feb. 8, she filed a
complaint with the police. Haubrich was picked up and brought to the Morris
County youth detention center where he stayed for three weeks.

At the end of his three weeks in the detention center, Haubrich was
admitted to the outpatient program at Daytop, an adolescent treatment
center in Mendham Township. After less than two weeks, he failed a urine
test and went back to the detention center. On March 23 he went back to
Daytop where he failed another urine test and was told he'd have to enter
Daytop's inpatient program.

That's when Haubrich ran away to a friend's house. He died there two days
later, on a Wednesday.

Maitilasso had seen Haubrich just the day before.

"We were throwing old CD's around, watching TV, telling jokes," he said.
"He seemed normal, like himself, running around and having fun."

Haubrich's friend had a separate entrance to his attic bedroom, so the
parents didn't know he was hiding out, Stifter said. She knew Haubrich
sought refuge at a friend's house and wanted to let him cool down. But by
Wednesday afternoon, she began to get worried and asked her son Bob to call
and find out what was going on.

When Bob called, the friend answered the phone in hysterics, saying he
couldn't wake Haubrich. Stifter told him to call 911. She drove over
immediately but was too late. As her son lay motionless on the closet
floor, she looked for the last time into his blue eyes and closed them.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski