Series: Wasted Youth -- Cases Of Neglect (Day 4 -- 6 Of 6)

LOSING LIVES

Whitman Family Thought John Bates Was Clean Until He Died In His Room

John Bates of Whitman died in his room at his parent's home from what
his father said was a heroin overdose. John Bates walked through the
kitchen, past his brother and up the stairs to his room on the other
side of his family's Whitman home. It was 11:30 p.m.

An hour later, his father would find the 22-year-old man dead on the
floor, a needle and syringe nearby. His death certificate lists
cocaine and narcotic intoxication as the cause of death. The
narcotic, his father said, was heroin.

"We thought he was doing better," his father, Kenneth Bates, said.
"He was doing so good. He seemed to have turned the corner. We didn't
expect this."

John Bates graduated from South Shore Vocational High School and was
working as a floor installer when he died. He would bring home things
- -- items others would call junk -- and fix them.

"He was so full of life," his father said. John Bates had dabbled in
OxyContin but then stopped using the drug.

"We could see the difference," his father said. "We thought he put it
all behind him."

But John was using heroin.

Heroin was the one drug Kenneth Bates said he always told his son to
stay away from. Far away from.

"Heroin, that's the demon," Kenneth Bates said he would tell his son.
The demon would eventually lure his son.

In the hours before he died, John had gone to Brockton to buy drugs,
friends later told his family. When he returned home that night,
nothing seemed amiss. His brother, Patrick, was in the kitchen,
getting something out of the refrigerator when his brother strode
through. He doesn't remember if they talked. He doesn't think they did.

"He just walked by," his brother, Patrick, said. "It was weird. He
just walked by and that was the last time I saw him." Kenneth Bates
went up to his son's room about an hour later. It was too late.

Patrick said there had been several other overdoses in town that month.

"The EMTs were able to bring them back," he said. "It was too late for him."