Series: Wasted Youth

OD TURNS MOM'S LAUGHS TO TEARS

With her eyes looking to the heavens, Patricia Peters walked behind
her 23-year-old daughter's casket as "Amazing Grace" echoed through
the Weymouth church last week.

Today, the Rockland mother is looking ahead, hoping her daughter's
heroin overdose death will stop others from using the drug.

"The message we have to get to the young kids is this is not a
recreational drug," Peters said.

Several groups are now sponsoring a forum at Bridgewater State
College on Thursday to educate people about opiates -- such as heroin
- -- and other drugs that are claiming the lives of teens and young
adults throughout the region.

"We need to help educate parents and arm them with as much
information as they can get," said Joanne Peterson, founder of Learn
to Cope (learn2cope.org), a parents support group.

The forum, starting at 7 p.m., will feature former addicts, parents
and speakers from drug-treatment programs. The forum is scheduled to
be held at the school library, but the venue could be moved to a
larger building.

"You have to shed light on this problem," Bridgewater Lt. Christopher
Delmonte said. "If there is a problem, burying your head in the sand
isn't going to solve it."

The seminar comes in the wake of an Enterprise four-day series
detailing the damage done locally by opiate addiction called "Wasted Youth."

Nearly 100 people have died of opiate overdoses since 2004 in the
area, The Enterprise reported.

Also, from 2003 to 2005, 2,682 people from area communities were
treated in emergency rooms for opioid-related abuse, dependency or
poisoning, according to the Massachusetts Division of Health Care
Finance and Policy.

Delmonte said parents need to know the signs of drug abuse -- and
then step in quickly.

"Nobody ever thinks they will ever be in this situation," he said.

Patricia Peters never thought her middle daughter, a Girl Scout and
Pop Warner cheerleader, would fall victim to heroin.

Kelly Molloy dreamed of becoming a fashion designer and took courses
in that field at Massasoit Community College.

But then her daughter began using OxyContin. And when the OxyContin
got too expensive, she turned to heroin -- the story of too many
young addicts today, Peters said.

She was living in the Edwina Martin Recovery House on Main Street,
Brockton, a halfway house, after going through treatment programs.
She was clean for four months, Peters said.

Until sometime Saturday night, March 24 or early the next day.

Molloy left the house that Saturday at 4:39 p.m. to attend a meeting
with another woman at a church in East Bridgewater. They returned at
10:30 p.m. and Molloy took a urine test at 12:15 a.m.

Seven hours later, a counselor heard a commotion in Molloy's room,
Lt. John Crowley, chief of detectives, said.

Molloy was found, unresponsive. She was taken to Caritas Good
Samaritan Medical Center and later pronounced dead. A test found
opiates and barbituates in her system, Crowley said.

Peters keeps close the memory of her last hours with her daughter,
the night before she died.

"I was with her Friday night, we took her and three of her friends
out to eat. She was wonderful. She looked great. She was happy. Her
friends were laughing. They were very, very happy," Peters said.

Four days later, the laughter was replaced by tears at the funeral.

"You hope and pray that their friends will learn from this," said the
Rev. William Salmon, who officiated at the funeral. "We live with the
hope that she is at peace with God."