BOSS AND CONFIDANTE TOOK CONTROL

Kathy DeWitt had been overhearing the conversations at work for a while.

Names and stories were whispered around the small Valparaiso market
research firm she owned at the time.

"So-and-so is spending all of her money on heroin."

"Did you hear that he overdosed?"

But when she finally recognized a name, it rattled her.

One day, a young worker came into the office and said Nate Bauer had died.

Bauer, who died from a heroin overdose in 2000, went to high school
with DeWitt's daughter.

"I just thought, 'Oh my gosh,' " DeWitt said.

"When your kids go to the same school, you hear names over and over again."

She was their confidante, the person they could turn to with their
problems when they just couldn't tell Mom or Dad.

So when some of her young employees started revealing themselves, or
their friends, as heroin users, DeWitt was devastated.

"You feel a sense of loss," she said.

It was all around her. Even in her office bathroom, where a job
applicant once shot up heroin the day of his interview.

She had seen and heard enough.

She began periodically visiting the police station to read through
the latest crime blotters. "It was very troubling," DeWitt said.

She followed people's lives through their arrest reports. An arrest
for drunk driving. Another for possession of heroin.

"And then you see that they've died, and it's tragic," she said.

She wanted to protect the people she'd grown to know and love. But
she was their boss, not their parent or a cop.

So she did what she could with the role she had: She started policing at work.

DeWitt instituted drug testing at her intimate shop as a condition of
employment as well as a way to conduct random checks on suspicious behavior.

New staff members under 18 would have to agree to share the results
with a parent or guardian.

DeWitt, who joined the Community Action Drug Coalition, became an
avid proponent of testing at work.

"I think you have to be very careful about how you go about doing
it," she said.

"Everybody's afraid. Believe me, we were afraid."

Because bad results could mean losing an employee as well as a friend.

"We are trying to protect the people who are here, to keep them as
safe as possible," DeWitt said.

But she can't keep everyone safe.

She swallows back tears when she talks about some former employees. A
few years ago, before she started testing, rumors swirled around
DeWitt's office that a 16-year-old female worker was throwing all her
money away on cocaine.

DeWitt listened to the gossip, but did nothing.

"As an employer, you go, 'How am I supposed to stop her from doing
this?' It's her money."

The girl later was found in Gary. She'd been beaten and gang-raped
for two days.

Testing at KLD Research -- which now is JEM Research Inc., -- began
shortly after that.

"You have relationships with people you care about," she said.

"Who wants to see them using anything? Who wants to see them go away?"