The New York Times, March 28, 2020, Who Killed Keylan Knapp?
Among the kids who boarded my No. 6 school bus each morning near Yamhill, Ore., were the Knapps, five smart and rambunctious children whose family had recently bought their first home and were full of confidence in the future.
Farlan, my classmate and the oldest of the siblings, descended into a spiral of drug and alcohol abuse and died of liver failure. Zealan died in a house fire when he was passed out drunk. Nathan blew himself up cooking meth. Rogena died of hepatitis from injecting drugs.
The only survivor among the children was the youngest, Keylan, and he was alive largely because he had spent 13 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Keylan worked in construction but fell off a roof in 2018, breaking his pelvis, his hip, both legs and an arm. He spent a month in the hospital and afterward struggled to find jobs. He couldn’t make payments on his house and lost it. He was frustrated and lonely.
The inability to find a job or purpose depressed Keylan, and he recently began to console himself with heroin.
This month Keylan overdosed on heroin. His girlfriend told me that she was gone for only a little more than an hour, but when she returned he was unresponsive.
A country cannot live up to its potential when its citizens don’t live up to theirs. R.I.P., Keylan Knapp.
