Podcast Episode 86. Katie’s Story: A Family’s Fight Against Fentanyl

Transcript

Season 7 Episode 11: Katie’s Story: A Family’s Fight Against Fentanyl

[00:00:00] Craig Robertson: Welcome to the Robertson and Easterling podcast. Today’s episode is one of the most important and heartfelt conversations we’ve ever had the privilege to share with you. We’re joined by Richard and Kim, who are the parents of Katie. Whose light and adventurous spirit touched everyone around her. Katie was smart, resilient, and full of life.

She was a scuba diver, a show choir performer, and an athlete. To her mom and dad, she was Katie Bug, a young woman whose smile and determination could light up any room. But in September of 2022, Richard and Kim’s world was shattered. Katie unknowingly took a pill laced with fentanyl, a substance 50 times stronger than heroin, and in an instant her life was gone. Just a quarter of that pill contained five times the lethal dose. She never stood a chance. Her story is heartbreaking, but not unique. [00:01:00] Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45. It kills more young people each year than car accidents, gun violence and cancer, combined. Families everywhere, even those who feel safe and far removed, are discovering how easily this poison can reach behind gated neighborhoods and into the lives of ordinary young people.

Richard and Kim have chosen to share Katie’s story, not out of bitterness, but out of love, faith, and gratitude for the 22 years they had with her. Their mission is to turn pain into purpose by raising awareness, breaking stigma, and sparking conversations to save lives. Today we’ll talk about who Katie was. What happened and how her parents are finding ways to honor her legacy through advocacy, through their marriage, and through their faith. We’ll also [00:02:00] shine a light on the Fentanyl crisis itself, so every listener understands both the danger and the hope that comes with awareness. But before we begin, we invite you to pause for just a moment of silence to honor Katie and all the lives lost to fentanyl poisoning.

This is a conversation about loss, but also about love, resilience, and purpose. And it’s a conversation we hope you’ll carry with you, share with others, and use as a reason to talk to your children, your grandchildren, your friends, and anyone who will listen because awareness truly can save lives. There’s a lot more to talk about, but first, let’s hear a word from our sponsors before we talk to Richard and Kim about Katie.[00:03:00]

This series is made possible by our generous sponsors. First is Enhanced Wellness Living where Kelly Engelman and her team at Mississippi’s Premier Functional Medicine Clinic empower individuals to reclaim their health through personalized care plans, a food first philosophy and regenerative therapies, helping clients uncover root causes and build lasting vitality.

We are also proud to be sponsored by Blue Sky Podcasting. Casey and his team have been recording our show from day one, and they have spent over a decade helping brands like ours craft compelling content. We are also sponsored by Mortgage Loan Officer Adam Black, now with Cross Country Mortgage. Adam is in his third season of sponsorship and brings expertise in divorce, mortgage planning, helping clients make informed decisions about their home during life transitions. We also [00:04:00] have two new sponsors this season, including our friend Brent Johnston at Life track coaching Brent partners with clients to uncover purpose, maximize potential, and navigate challenges with confidence. And finally, we have our super energetic, always upbeat, La Jessica Woodard, a certified divorce real estate expert who offers impartial and professional guidance through complex real estate transactions. To learn more about our sponsors, click the podcast tab at Robertson Ms.

Guys, nice to meet you, Kim, Richard, thank you for being here. I’m so honored that I’m sitting here with you guys as you are. You have this incredible story to share. So Kim, I’ll start with you. Tell our listeners and myself a little bit about you and the early days of being with this guy, Richard, over here.

[00:04:58] Kim: Richard and I we’ve been [00:05:00] married 30 years. We married in 1995, and we had our first child in 1996. We had three girls and we raised them in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and then moved to Jackson in, I don’t know, 2013, I believe.

[00:05:18] Craig Robertson: Now, tell us about your girls. Who are they and tell the birth order.

[00:05:21] Kim: Natalie is our first.

[00:05:23] Craig Robertson: Okay.

[00:05:23] Kim: And then Katie is our middle child, and Lindsay is our is the baby.

[00:05:28] Craig Robertson: Alright.

[00:05:28] Kim: Yeah.

[00:05:29] Craig Robertson: And how’d you guys get together?

[00:05:31] Kim: We met in Vicksburg. I was actually a student at Hinz at the time. He was graduated and working as a CPA actually at main company. And so we met through my sister and one of her friends and started dating and just we dated about.

[00:05:48] Craig Robertson: Just started life.

[00:05:48] Kim: Yeah, just started life and we dated for about a year and a half and got engaged and got married and.

[00:05:56] Craig Robertson: Started making a life together.

[00:05:57] Kim: That’s right.

[00:05:57] Craig Robertson: Did you work outside the home?

[00:05:59] Kim: I did not. [00:06:00] After I had my first child I decided to be a stay-at-home mom, and that’s what I’ve done. My whole life.

[00:06:05] Craig Robertson: Fantastic.

[00:06:05] Kim: Since we’ve been married, my whole married life, I did work before we met, but I just decided that was my place and that’s where I, wanted to be. He worked a lot probably the first 15 years of our life that our married life. He worked lot of hours, long hours and so it was important for me to be around, to be able to give them the attention that and.

[00:06:24] Richard: Yeah to build the home.

[00:06:25] Craig Robertson: Yeah, Richard, I can relate to that. I work a lot too. I most of our listeners know I’ve got two daughters. So talk about that, man. You got four women that you are blessed with having in your life. And as a young man, you went to work with this young family.

[00:06:39] Richard: I did work a lot. I look back, to be honest with you I like to say, live life without regrets, but I regret that I prioritized work so much. I would, it’d definitely be something I would change if I did it over again. I would, put a higher priority on the family unit.

[00:06:55] Craig Robertson: Yeah, man. As a man, it’s a difficult balance and life is all about balance [00:07:00] because on one hand you have the responsibility to care well financially for your family, but at the same time, they need your presence as well.

[00:07:10] Richard: For sure.

[00:07:10] Craig Robertson: And I think a lot of men who are listening to my voice right now can resignate with that struggle, and I doubt very seriously there are many folks in the nursing home having conversations about their life who say, gosh, I wish I would’ve worked more. Except when I get to do fun things like this, it’s just the favorite part of my job, chemist to have these, types of conversations. Let’s talk about Katie. That’s why we’re here. What was she like as a little girl, Richard?

[00:07:35] Richard: Just a little piece of sunshine. She was of her. I’m not comparing, but I guess I am but.

[00:07:42] Craig Robertson: No, they’re all different.

[00:07:43] Richard: Yeah, they’re all different but she was just always the, she made the best of every situation. I used to tell people that, the sun didn’t come up one day, Katie would grab a flashlight and act like nothing was wrong. It was just she just made the best of every situation.

[00:07:55] Craig Robertson: Man, that’s so good to have such a positive outlook on life. What about from your [00:08:00] perspective, mama? What was she like as a little girl growing up?

[00:08:03] Kim: Oh, gosh. She loved sing and dance and I could hear her in the shower, singing in the bathtub, singing a song of something or other, but she loved to dress up and she was just a typical little girl that liked to put makeup on, dress up, and just.

[00:08:18] Craig Robertson: My daughter Molly Ann, I hope she’s listening to this. ‘Cause I’ve shared Katie’s story with her and as I intend to share with lots of people but when she comes home, she’s in college now when that girl is singing at the top of her lungs all the time and quite frankly, I hate to be that guy, but sometimes like, all right baby that’s enough of that particular song. But we miss that those sounds around the house. And that life and music and but as she became, as Katie got older, she was into other things, some cool things, Scuba diving, and I know she was an athlete. So tell me about that, Kim.

[00:08:48] Kim: She played basketball and tennis. She had an injury in junior high with basketball.

[00:08:55] Craig Robertson: Tell me about that.

[00:08:56] Kim: Oh gosh. It was terrible. She [00:09:00] dislocated the femur from the growth plate.

[00:09:02] Craig Robertson: Oh gosh.

[00:09:02] Kim: And we had to rush her to the emergency room and they did emergency surgery the next day.

[00:09:08] Craig Robertson: Oh goodness. How old was she when that happened?

[00:09:10] Kim: I wanna say 13 or 14.

[00:09:13] Craig Robertson: Wow.

[00:09:13] Kim: I believe it was eighth grade, that this happened.

[00:09:17] Craig Robertson: That’s trauma.

[00:09:18] Kim: Yeah.

[00:09:18] Craig Robertson: That’s a big deal.

[00:09:18] Kim: Yeah, it was pretty major.

[00:09:19] Craig Robertson: We had a our younger daughter, both were athletes, but our younger daughter was a volleyball player and she tore her ACL and I mean it, that was a huge deal. But it sounds like this was.

[00:09:30] Kim: Oh, painful.

[00:09:31] Craig Robertson: Equally or worse. Yeah, it was painful.

[00:09:32] Kim: Oh, she was in a lot of pain. I just felt for her.

[00:09:34] Craig Robertson: And how did, so Richard talk about, so there’s this major injury. How did that impact her life as after the surgery and in recovery from that?

[00:09:43] Richard: At the time, it was a surgery, there was recovery. Everything seemed it was, she dealt with the she recovered. She was back up and going and in the time allotted for a normal rehab there.

[00:09:53] Craig Robertson: But she returned to the court and keep playing?

[00:09:55] Richard: Oh, yeah. She didn’t continue with basketball beyond that year, I don’t think. But [00:10:00] she continued to play tennis and she continued to be active after she got back to the point as we had no idea at the time, what impact, the pain meds that she was prescribed during that surgery might have later in life.

[00:10:15] Craig Robertson: Sure.

[00:10:15] Richard: It was mentioned later on that, she remembered that feeling from those pain meds, later, in her early twenties.

[00:10:21] Craig Robertson: Kim, talk about your girls, talk about their interactions together, what the family life was like with all that energy and estrogen in one place.

[00:10:29] Kim: Oh goodness. Yeah.

[00:10:31] Craig Robertson: What’s her age differences?

[00:10:32] Kim: It’s, Natalie is 10 years older than the youngest.

[00:10:35] Craig Robertson: Okay. Wow. 10 year age gap between the youngest and the oldest.

[00:10:38] Kim: And Katie was in the middle and she was about four years between Natalie. And her and Natalie were four years apart and then six years between Katie and Lindsay.

[00:10:48] Craig Robertson: Okay. Wow.

[00:10:49] Kim: Yeah. But they got along well. They, on the weekends we spent a lot of time going to the lake. We bought a boat. We had a trailer. A camper. And we just, [00:11:00] they were all adventurous. And they, loved to have fun and so we tried to encourage that and we would take ’em to Lake Lincoln a lot.

[00:11:08] Craig Robertson: They’re down in Brookhaven.

[00:11:09] Kim: Yeah.

[00:11:09] Craig Robertson: Okay, cool.

[00:11:09] Kim: We started off taking ’em there and tubing and they just loved it and they loved the camping and all of that, and so we just made it a part of our life.

[00:11:18] Craig Robertson: And Richard, are you a boat captain or were you a boat captain?

[00:11:21] Richard: I have been a boat captain many weekends.

[00:11:23] Craig Robertson: Yeah, as a Mississippian I’m a city boy because, trucks and trailers and boats and things like that, or, I’d be scared to death to drive either boat or a boat with a trailer on it for sure.

[00:11:33] Richard: But the kids were fearless for sure. And we I think, I don’t think there’s gonna be any of my daughters or any of their friends that won’t admit that they’ve been tossed from a tube behind my boat.

[00:11:43] Craig Robertson: I bet that’s true. Kim, I’d love to hear more about Katie’s life as she grew up.

[00:11:48] Kim: Oh, yes. She was active in high school and junior high, but in high school she got involved with show choir and theater and she had two major roles and two of the plays [00:12:00] at school. And she just loved it. She loved the spotlight. She loved to sing and dance, and that was just where she was the most comfortable. She just, she loved it and she was good at it.

[00:12:09] Craig Robertson: That’s such a so awesome and such a lost part of our educational system in a lot of schools these days even, I went to Wingfield High School, which is no longer a thing, but we had something called Falcon Follies and any high school folks who can hear my voice know about Falcon Follies. But what happened was 10th graders, 11th graders and 12th graders each would write, produce, and perform a musical and it was a competition between the grades and it happened at our school for years and years and I know that. I’m not clearly if anybody’s listening to my voice knows I’m not some talented actor or speaker or something like that. But it was great training to be standing in an auditorium in front of people and it sounds like you guys got to enjoy Katie being in the spotlight.

[00:12:51] Kim: Yes, we did. We

[00:12:52] Craig Robertson: That’s awesome.

[00:12:52] Kim: Enjoy. We have some wonderful memories of her being on stage and so that’ll be something that we can go back and look at.

[00:12:59] Craig Robertson: Yeah, totally.

[00:12:59] Kim: And she did play [00:13:00] tennis too, she stuck with tennis all through high school.

[00:13:02] Craig Robertson: So when did the problem start, Richard?

[00:13:04] Richard: To our knowledge, she had been in she excelled in high school. She was a almost a straight A student had a full scholarship to college. When she got to college, she was performing at a very high level there as well, and COVID hit. COVID came in and the end class interaction ended and just the online classes and the lack of structure. She struggled with it in a big way. And she was in an engineering major as a platform to go to med school. But anyway, she started to do the online courses, she struggled and her grades slipped. She,

[00:13:45] Craig Robertson: Kim, why don’t you help him out a little bit?

[00:13:47] Kim: Did you mention that she had ADHD.

[00:13:48] Richard: Yeah. No I was looking forward.

[00:13:50] Kim: She struggled with ADHD and not being in person, in class she really struggled with that. It was hard to study.

[00:13:57] Craig Robertson: I can’t imagine how overwhelming.

[00:13:58] Kim: It was hard to sit and watch a lecture [00:14:00] on your laptop.

[00:14:01] Craig Robertson: Sure.

[00:14:01] Kim: Is basically what they were doing and so it was hard for her ’cause she, it was really important that she was in class, in person being able to interact with the, what’s being taught. And so I think just that isolation, being stuck in her dorm, apartment. Not dorm, but apartment.

[00:14:18] Craig Robertson: Richard, think back when you, obviously we as parents, there’s, we don’t know everything. We might, I should know everything. But when would, can you first remember there being a problem and that caused you concern?

[00:14:33] Richard: Red flags came at us that we didn’t acknowledge like we should.

[00:14:38] Craig Robertson: Like what, help me understand.

[00:14:39] Richard: The COVID it was an excuse that was used that we accepted that our grades changed in a big way. The online classes, she used that as an excuse for her grades to fall. And it very well could have been the case. I’m not, but it was a major change. We went from a’s to C’s and D’s and even a few elfs and, and like overnight we should [00:15:00] have, not had been as trusting and we should have dug in harder to understand what was really going on there. And, looking back.

[00:15:08] Craig Robertson: Guys, look, we were in a global pandemic and it was a very discombobulating time for everybody, especially our young people who are used to that rich community and then went into isolation and this unnatural online learning environment. What other red flags, Kim, looking back without, with in kindness to yourself, do you now see that might have impacted what eventually transpired? You’ve got the COVID situation. Her grades are slipping, which was a red flag, obviously. And then everybody, of course, was experiencing COVID and in Katie’s defense, I was an engineering major for a short season of time and it wasn’t for me. And I took the what without COVID and without online learning, landed somewhere else.

[00:15:55] Kim: Yeah. She did come to me and she did tell me she was experiencing some anxiety. And, [00:16:00] she wanted, she thought maybe she needed somebody to talk to. So I said, okay that’s perfectly fine. We’ll find somebody. So we did, I did connect her with a therapist and she was going to her for a little while, to and help her work through her anxiety and things she was experiencing with her failing grades. And she was not used to making bad grades. And so that did create some anxiety for her. But I think even after that she stopped going to this therapist. And, I don’t think things improved. But we weren’t visiting her at college as often as I wish we would have. Just because we had Lindsay who was in high school and she was involved in things and so we were trying to keep up with her schedule and things that she was involved in.

[00:16:49] Craig Robertson: Yeah. You have three kids.

[00:16:49] Kim: Right and so I wish I had, probably visited her more so I could get an understanding of what was going on in her world. But she did tell me a few [00:17:00] times that call her and she said I’m just hanging out at home and doing a puzzle. Just don’t wanna be around my friends right now. And she would say things like that and I thought, gosh, that’s just really strange because she loved being with her friends, loved to play games with them. And then I just felt like maybe she was starting to just isolate herself more. ‘Cause she was telling me that she wasn’t, spending as much time with her friends. And I, just wish I could revisit that conversation and ask a few more questions.

[00:17:30] Craig Robertson: Richard.

[00:17:30] Kim: About that.

[00:17:30] Craig Robertson: Y’all obviously, there were maybe little small breadcrumbs of concern, slipping grades, somewhat isolation. Everybody was somewhat isolated, of course, during the COVID pandemic. What else do you in hindsight notice about that season, Richard?

[00:17:45] Richard: We learned that and we’re aware, that, she had resorted to smoking marijuana as a coping mechanism. We’ve come to it actually makes it worse, is what we’ve come to learn. It’s a I don’t know. I grew up in the eighties that was not uncommon then for [00:18:00] people that age to do we weren’t over the top concerned about that, we just thought it was a passing phase and but that was yet another red flag that came up to us.

[00:18:09] Craig Robertson: How’d y’all become aware of that, Kim?

[00:18:11] Kim: We were at her school one weekend visiting with her, and we were going to a game and we realized that her friends had come over late that night and knocked on the door and were wanting her to come out and smoke with them. And so we we knew before that, she was dabbling in that a little bit. But we just, that in general just seemed like strange that.

[00:18:39] Craig Robertson: Yeah. In fairness, like you said, Richard, in fairness. Young person in college with friends, certainly something to acknowledge. But not necessarily on the scale of problems that we can experience as parents, trying to navigate, helping rear our kids, smoking marijuana is not a red, a five star [00:19:00] alarm or anything like that and so these obviously I know that in hindsight, these things, you’re trying to connect the dots. But at the same thing, at the same time. There’s nothing about what I’ve heard so far that, would make you guys panic, I would think.

[00:19:15] Kim: Yeah. The only thing I think I really noticed when we were, at her apartment that weekend was that some of the artwork on her walls were a little, disturbing to me, but she loved to go. Was it thrifting?

[00:19:30] Craig Robertson: Oh yeah.

[00:19:30] Kim: Go to thrifting.

[00:19:31] Richard: Yeah. Oh yeah, totally.

[00:19:32] Kim: Her, a couple of her friends just loved doing that. And so she picked up paintings and pictures that I don’t know were a little disturbing to me and asked her about it and she was like, ah, it’s just art. It’s just art. But it was kind of dark art. A little bit to me. There was a picture of a lady that looked like she’d been crying and she was just distraught tears coming [00:20:00] down her face and I thought, why would somebody hang that on their wall?

[00:20:03] Craig Robertson: You wanna be surrounded by that kind of sadness, right?

[00:20:06] Kim: Yeah. That, and just a few other things that she had just hanging on our wall that were concerning to me. That kind of pointed that I thought is she depressed? Maybe this is just her way of expressing, I don’t know.

[00:20:21] Craig Robertson: Sadness.

[00:20:21] Kim: Yeah.

[00:20:22] Craig Robertson: Kim, you talked about some dark artwork and some concerns about depression and some light drug use. Were there other things that were happening at college that created some concern?

[00:20:34] Kim: I had access to her bank account.

[00:20:37] Craig Robertson: Sure.

[00:20:37] Kim: And I realized there were a lot of cash withdrawals within a week period. And it was concerning to me. So I called her one day and she was actually home that weekend. It was in the summer. And asked her to come home ’cause I needed to talk to her. And when she came home, I [00:21:00] asked her about why was she using so much cash, requiring so much cash? What is she using that for? And she was very honest. She told me the whole story how her and her friend had gotten addicted to fentanyl. Not that they chose to go out and start, they didn’t seek out fentanyl. She was looking for something to help with her anxiety. And so they bought Percocet out on the street from at dealer somebody that was selling it and she believed it was real Percocet that you would just get from a pharmacy. But they later found out after they had realized that they had to keep taking it, they had gotten addicted to it, because it was laced with Fentanyl.

[00:21:46] Craig Robertson: And she shared all this with you?

[00:21:47] Kim: Yeah.

[00:21:47] Craig Robertson: Out of the gate. When you knew about the harder drug use, you knew that Fentanyl was involved with it?

[00:21:53] Kim: She told me why she was using, why she was spending all that cash.

[00:21:57] Craig Robertson: Yeah, sure.

[00:21:57] Kim: But they initially had gone to [00:22:00] a clinic to try and find out why they were, I guess to look for Suboxone. I don’t know. But at the time she told me that they were trying to get off of it and that they, the clinic had prescribed Suboxone and that’s how they found out that what they were taking was laced with fentanyl. The clinic told ’em that. And so that they needed to take Suboxone to be able to get off of the fentanyl without a major what is it?

[00:22:29] Craig Robertson: The withdrawal symptoms.

[00:22:31] Kim: Withdrawal symptoms, yeah. I was shocked and I asked Richard to come home that we needed to have a conversation. And sit down and talk to Katie about all of this that was going on. And so that was when we decided it was best for her to come home from school. She subleased her apartment and did not go, was planning to stay home for the semester until we could figure out what to do next about this.

[00:22:54] Craig Robertson: Richard, from your perspective, talk about this series of events in your life.

[00:22:59] Richard: She came [00:23:00] home. She, as we stated, she was completely open and honest with what was going on. That was our Katie. She was great relationship. She was very forthcoming with the Truth. What we didn’t understand at the time is the addiction. And that the addiction, we didn’t know that sometimes we were talking to the addiction rather than her. Katie took care of everything she was supposed to do, who she was. We hadn’t, we thought we were talking to that 4.0 student that was, that had always done everything that she said she was going to do. We didn’t understand the relationship of an addiction to a person. The addiction had taken control of a piece of her mind. And, at that time, we just didn’t understand the depth of that, and we didn’t understand how urgent the situation was. Katie told us [00:24:00] she could handle it. We believed her because she had handled everything she said she had.

[00:24:04] Craig Robertson: She had always handled everything.

[00:24:05] Richard: She had all of her life. So we were, we just, we wished we knew then what we know now.

[00:24:10] Craig Robertson: Sure, don’t we all. So Kim this problem becomes more serious, obviously, and you guys made the decision that maybe not being enrolled in school to address this was what was best for Katie and for your family. What, talk about the days after that conversation.

[00:24:29] Kim: I’ll let Richard speak to that.

[00:24:30] Craig Robertson: Yeah, great.

[00:24:30] Kim: Because she was working with Richard on.

[00:24:32] Richard: She Katie and I worked, the first thing we did is we looked and what do we do here? We, and we looked for rehab clinics, for opioids and for fentanyl. We didn’t, after Kim and I had, I’m not gonna lie I went to Google and what is Fentanyl course?

[00:24:45] Craig Robertson: Sure.

[00:24:46] Richard: I had to ask, I had no idea before.

[00:24:48] Craig Robertson: Trust me, I’ve done the same thing to prep for this conversation. It’s just not, you hear the word.

[00:24:52] Richard: !Right, but Katie and we had trouble finding a facility and we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know if she was gonna go into [00:25:00] withdrawals. We I just had no idea what to expect. And Katie looked at it and said, I think I’m okay. I think I’m, let me just stay here with you guys and she was okay. She was, we spent several weeks where we spent a lot of time together. Was it during that time that she was coming to the office and working with me. Just, she was wanting.

[00:25:18] Kim: She decided to take a real estate course. She was studying to get a real estate license. And that was something that Richard is, has always done. He invest in real estate properties and I think that was something that she thought she might wanna do for a little while. So she was working towards that studying and taking notes and doing that sort of thing. During that time.

[00:25:43] Richard: It was a 30 day period that she was living with us and living, she was she had no money. She had no way to, she was clean. I if that’s the right word here. She was performing coherent. Everything no parting, no drinking no anything. It was, spending all of our [00:26:00] time with us and then everything else we learned after the fact. But a friend that she had used with before came out of rehab basically called her on the way home. Hey, can we hook up and do this again? And that’s kinda all it took to shake her loose and get her back off track. And it was, like I said we learned all of this after the fact, but.

[00:26:23] Kim: Yeah. From her phone records.

[00:26:25] Craig Robertson: Kim, tell me

[00:26:25] Kim: yeah, conversations that.

[00:26:26] Craig Robertson: Tell me about the day she died.

[00:26:29] Kim: The day before we all went to church together and had lunch afterwards, went home and just, as far as I can remember, I think we all took a nap. And evidently she left that afternoon while we were all napping and met the dealer. And, we had no idea that she had relapsed at this point. We still didn’t know. We didn’t know the boyfriend had come home either and then gone back to rehab. All this [00:27:00] happened in one week. And that evening after dinner, we were all getting ready for bed and we told her goodnight and we loved her for the last time. Didn’t know, didn’t have any idea what was going on. Wake up that next morning and just, go about your day like it normally would go, sitting outside, doing my daily devotion and he’s at work, like he normally goes to work. And I realized at probably 11 45, 12 o’clock that, I haven’t seen Katie yet. I wonder why she hasn’t come downstairs yet. So I march upstairs and usually her and Remy are downstairs together, before then and open the door, unsuspecting not knowing anything is going on and I found her face down in her bed with her phone in her hand. And that was the most devastating traumatic thing for [00:28:00] anybody to have to live through. And I had to call 9 1 1 because I realized she was not breathing. And 9 1 1, the lady dispatch lady had me ask me to put her on the floor and give her CPR until the authorities could get there, the fire station. And they were very quick to respond. It seemed like forever to me. I didn’t know what to do and she had to tell me and how to do CPR and the whole thing just seemed like it took 30 minutes, but it, I know it wasn’t that long, but just the fact of trying to do CPR on your own daughter that’s turned blue from not breathing. I don’t know how long she’d been laying there. And once they finally got there, they told me that, there was no hope that she’d been, she was gone. [00:29:00] And at that point, they made me leave the room and searched her room. And I guess they found the pill, part of the pill that she had taken in her bathroom. And then I don’t know, after that I called Richard and told him he needed to come home.

[00:29:21] Craig Robertson: Richard, tell me about that phone call.

[00:29:26] Richard: Like she said. I was, at work doing what I do and it’s I can’t remember exactly, but, it’s a I saw her phone, I saw her name pop up on the phone. I was in the middle of some meaningless finance discussion with some people on the Zoom call. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she had to call twice, because it was but when she, when I saw the name the second time, I said, guys, I’ve gotta take this, and it was it’s the way those calls come, it’s it was absolutely shattered our world. But, she told me and Richard, [00:30:00] I think Katie might be dead. I was seven miles away. I don’t know. I’m still traumatized when I drive down Lakeland Drive. Come to a stoplight, because I ran every one of them. ’cause she said, think Katie might be dead so I had hope for that five minute period and yeah I remember getting to the house and there was cop cars and fire trucks and there was everything everywhere and just went in. I was in shock absolute shock. Tried to go up into the room, tried to go up and still had that word think, I still had some hope and I walked up and I made somebody tell me. And they wouldn’t allow me in the room and because they explained to me it was a criminal investigation and I [00:31:00]was again, in shock. But yeah, it was most devastating day of my life.

[00:31:10] Craig Robertson: So after the reality of what had happened, sunk in and in the hours and days following, that horrific Monday. Talk about your life, Kim moving, trying to move forward from that.

[00:31:30] Kim: Oh, goodness.

[00:31:32] Craig Robertson: And I know when I say trying,

[00:31:33] Kim: I don’t think

[00:31:33] Craig Robertson: It’s a everyday thing.

[00:31:34] Kim: Oh yeah. It was just, I could not stop crying. And just thinking why did this happen and what did we, how did we not know that this was happening in our, under our own roof? Yeah. And thinking what could I have said or done to prevent this, just all of those questions that go through [00:32:00] your mind. I spent a lot of time walking Remy in the neighborhood.

[00:32:04] Craig Robertson: Now let’s talk about Remy. You mentioned Remy, but we haven’t told our listener who Remy is.

[00:32:10] Kim: Remy is her dog that was her companion, her friend, and, she took Remy everywhere she went. Not to class, of course, but.

[00:32:22] Craig Robertson: What kind of dog is Remy?

[00:32:23] Kim: She is a white German Shepherd.

[00:32:25] Craig Robertson: Wow.

[00:32:26] Kim: Yeah. And.

[00:32:27] Craig Robertson: So that was her partner.

[00:32:29] Kim: Right yeah. They went everywhere together. And that white fore runner she took Remy, spent a lot of time with her, took her to the dog park played with her in the pool, threw the ball with her. She loved that dog. And that dog loved her and still does. She grieved too. It was heartbreaking to see her. She would just go to her room constantly looking for her, and she would stare out the window. [00:33:00] Whenever somebody would leave in the four runner, we drive her four runner now, but if her four runner’s gone, she would just sit by the window and just stare, waiting for her to come back thinking she was gonna come back. Is she gonna come back? Just things like that. And she was just so intuitive when Richard and I would be sad or we would cry, she would come over and just, lick the tears off her face and she would just curl up next to us and use her paw like she does and grabs your arm. It’s okay.

[00:33:30] Craig Robertson: Thank you God for dogs.

[00:33:31] Kim: I know right? Oh my gosh.

[00:33:33] Craig Robertson: We thank you for that wonderful animal.

[00:33:34] Kim: She has been. And she reminds us of her every day. So she’s been a blessing to us for sure.

[00:33:40] Craig Robertson: Gosh, I know.

[00:33:40] Kim: She’s adopted us and we’ve adopted her.

[00:33:43] Craig Robertson: That’s so good. I can only imagine, Richard, what losing one of your precious children is like. Can you you’ve said that losing a daughter feels different than losing a parent, sibling or friend. Can you give more words to that?

[00:33:58] Richard: Here [00:34:00] I can try to speak to it here. Just over three years after losing her, I’ve, I lost my dad when I was 19. I lost a brother. We were two or three years apart in our, in my forties and I but lost grandparents, lost it’s, but losing a child, not a child. She was a young adult. She was 22 years old, but still in our house and still in school and it’s just you’re I don’t know. It, you lose you don’t really think about it this way, but you lose the opportunity to see who they’re going to become. You lose the opportunity to see the kids are gonna have and the life they’re gonna live. And after, I’ve heard similar stories from everybody in our unfortunate situation. And it’s just different. It’s a you can’t relate in case you know you’re in this horrible. A club that none of us wanted to get into. It’s just a whole nother level. Grief and pain.

[00:34:59] Craig Robertson: I [00:35:00] can’t even begin to put myself in your place but as I told you before we started the podcast, I both my parents were married to other people before they married each other. And they each had two children with that other partner, and then they married each other and had two children. So I’m the youngest of six children, and when I was about 10 years old my half brother Mike was in a relationship that went south and there was a breakup and he was very distraught by it. And he took a gun and killed himself. And my dad was a strong man. He was an electrician. IBEW Local four 80 for 50, 60 years and his, I’ve got office hands, but he had man hands and he was lefthanded and he was. He was my dad and I can remember just again, I’m a 10-year-old, but I can remember the police at the door. I can remember people from the church coming over and I can remember this strong man sitting on the edge of his bed with a pastor [00:36:00] wrapping his arms around him, and with my dad just heaving unconsolably and so just, I can I’m 51 years old and I can take myself back to that room easily. And so I just have just a little picture of what that day might have been like for you guys and then trying to move forward. Kim, talk about your girls, your other girls. Natalie and Lindsay and the impact on them and how they’ve been able to manage and cope. I know you can’t speak for them, but as their mom, what have you observed?

[00:36:30] Kim: My youngest Lindsay she was still at home. Of course she was a junior. And I knew right away that I just needed to that she needed somebody to talk to.

[00:36:41] Craig Robertson: Sure. \

[00:36:41] Kim: Her friends were uncomfortable. She tried to talk to her friends and they would listen, but they just didn’t have any feedback. They were, felt bad for her, felt sorry for, nobody her age can give them, give her advice.

[00:36:55] Craig Robertson: They’re kids.

[00:36:55] Kim: For what they’re, what she’s going through.

[00:36:57] Craig Robertson: Yeah.

[00:36:57] Kim: Exactly. And so just through [00:37:00] conversations that her and I were having, she said, mom, just, nobody understands what I’m going through. And I feel like I don’t have anybody to talk to. And I said we need to get you somebody to talk to then. And so we found a therapist that this seems really strange, but it was actually Katie’s therapist and I didn’t know it. We went to the same.

[00:37:19] Craig Robertson: Group.

[00:37:20] Kim: Group and she was the therapist for adolescents and teenagers, young adults and that’s who we made the appointment with. And, unknowingly, but Lindsay and her just clicked because she knew Katie and she had a connection.

[00:37:40] Craig Robertson: Oh, that’s so good.

[00:37:40] Kim: Yeah. And Lindsay said that she felt a connection with her because she knew her sister and knew what she was like. And she felt very comfortable and she went to this therapist for two and a half years.

[00:37:54] Craig Robertson: Good.

[00:37:54] Kim: And just, she was wonderful and she helped Lindsay through all of her. [00:38:00] I wouldn’t say, I don’t know depression, but just.

[00:38:03] Craig Robertson: Grief.

[00:38:04] Kim: Grief, yeah. And she’s doing great. She’s, in college right now and she’s thriving and doing well. Her older sister. She at the time was struggling with her own addiction. She had been addicted to alcohol for quite a while and had been to therapy inpatient therapy several times without success. She would go and then come back and then relapse. And after Katie’s death, I think it just hit her really hard and she just kinda spiraled. And it got worse. And about three months later, after Katie’s death and funeral she ended up going to inpatient therapy and was gone for about 10 and a half months. And but it was the best thing for her. She is now two and a half years sober.

[00:38:56] Craig Robertson: Great.

[00:38:56] Kim: And she, I think that she [00:39:00] found success in that. We did different this last time. She went to, whereas before she only went to three months. Usually that’s a typical time for inpatient.

[00:39:09] Craig Robertson: Yeah. 90 days.

[00:39:10] Kim: So she went to three months of somewhere in north Mississippi for detox. And then she went another three months to another place for trauma treatment. She did have some trauma in her past that developed through her addictions. And then after that she went to sober living and the sober living, I think that sealed the deal.

[00:39:32] Craig Robertson: Good for her.

[00:39:33] Kim: She learned how to live again. Just they teach you.

[00:39:39] Craig Robertson: Recovery.

[00:39:39] Kim: How to live life. How to do life not with the substances and she was at Sober living. They had chores. They had a job they had to go to a couple times a week. They had responsibilities. They had to get up a certain time. It was very structured. And I think that helped her, it just brought that stability back into her [00:40:00] life and that what you wanna call that structure? Yeah. Just all of that.

[00:40:04] Craig Robertson: Accountability.

[00:40:05] Kim: Yes.

[00:40:06] Craig Robertson: Responsibility. Community.

[00:40:07] Kim: Yeah.

[00:40:08] Craig Robertson: And purpose, meaning everything.

[00:40:10] Kim: Right. Yeah. And I think that through Katie’s, death, I think that motivated her too. That, she had mentioned that. How could she not get sober after losing her sister to an addiction? And she also has a little girl that she was fighting for too. So I think that motivated her even more as well. That through Katie’s loss. I think that just, yeah.

[00:40:37] Craig Robertson: How about you, man? Talk about how’s Richard doing today? That’s we’ve heard about your kids, your beautiful wife has spoken so eloquently about this just incredibly horrific experience that you guys have had. How, but speak to the men. How are you doing? I know feeling, if you’re like me, feelings are hard to express on occasion. But [00:41:00] get put some words around, around your daily life at this point.

[00:41:04] Richard: I think after, right after the loss I probably didn’t do a good job at it. But I felt like I was responsible for keeping everybody afloat in that period of time. I’m gonna say the first two years when, you know Lindsay and Natalie was in getting herself cleaned up. Lindsay was going to therapy and learning how to deal with grief. Kim was leaning hard back into her faith. And, it just, going through the process of figuring it out and dealing with the grief and I thought my position was there to support them all and get them through this. And but I’m gonna tell you, I’ve come to learn that, I had to deal with this. As well. And that was I was an emotional wreck to be honest with you. And just to bring that around, just, I don’t [00:42:00] know here, three years after the fact, leaning back into faith leaning back in, getting involved in advocacy and trying to do something and allow Katie’s voice to be heard. It’s just so healing and uplifting and I think I’m in better shape now than I was a year ago. But I think two years into this, a year ago, I was probably in worse shape than I was right after it happened because it just, I just tried to tuck it away and move forward. It is just too much to tuck away.

[00:42:32] Craig Robertson: Yeah. Kim, Richard mentioned advocacy and faith. And let’s start with faith. We’ve heard how your kids tried to navigate moving forward, and we’ve heard how Richard did so maybe messily and what about you, Richard suggested that you poured back into your faith? Talk about that.

[00:42:54] Kim: I tried to lean on my faith and I would every [00:43:00] day turn on a radio station that was my favorite gospel, Christian music radio station. And that helped me.

[00:43:06] Craig Robertson: Yeah, I agree.

[00:43:07] Kim: Tremendously through a lot of depression and despair and just some really dark moments. When I turned on that radio station, that was my lifeline. It would lift my spirits and help me through the day. And of course I never lost faith, but it’s really hard when you go through something like this and you lose someone so close to you. To ask why and I mentioned that earlier. Why, God, why, and you question your parenting, you think, what did I do wrong? And somebody had brought to my attention that, God has a plan for everyone. And he knows the days of our lives and when they begin and when they end. And nobody wants to be in this club [00:44:00] but there was a plan. God had a plan. And that’s really hard to listen to at first. It’s hard to accept because I thought gosh I really wanted to see her. Like my husband said, we wanted to see her get married. We wanna see her have grandchildren. We wanna see her succeed, as a doctor and live that happy life and.

[00:44:24] Craig Robertson: It feels unfair. Something was stolen. Stolen from you.

[00:44:27] Kim: And so just through reading just trying to read my Bible and two of my devotions in the mornings, it has brought me back around to understanding that it’s not up to me to question why things happen. And since Katie’s death, we had talked about wanting to do something to help other people.

[00:44:54] Craig Robertson: Yeah. What did y’all do? I wanna know all about it.

[00:44:56] Kim: This opportunity presented itself, this walk for [00:45:00] lives and I realized that there was no walk scheduled for Mississippi. And it’s a nationwide walk. There’s gonna be walks all across the United States on that same day at the same time. And I just, I thought, wow, this is my opportunity. And I just felt God leading me to step out in faith and sign up for it. And this is the first walk that I have ever organized or tried to lead and something to me just said, okay, you need to do this. I told Richard, I said, I guess what, I signed up for this walk for Lives of Fentanyl awareness thing and he said, what? You did what? And.

[00:45:41] Craig Robertson: You didn’t just sign up, you signed up to lead.

[00:45:43] Kim: I yeah, because that’s what they needed. They needed a leader.

[00:45:46] Craig Robertson: They needed somebody to work to do.

[00:45:47] Kim: To organize it for you. That’s what I did. And we’re, since then, we were just, we’ve been all in and he’s been very supportive of it. And it has actually helped him because we’ve had to put our story together and actually, think about [00:46:00] it. We hadn’t really wanted to think about it or put it down on paper and talk about it. And I think just through that process of talking about it and writing it down helps heal.

[00:46:13] Craig Robertson: Time.

[00:46:14] Kim: Just, it gets it out of your head.

[00:46:16] Craig Robertson: And tears.

[00:46:16] Kim: Exactly.

[00:46:17] Craig Robertson: And telling your story and telling your story, and telling your story, and telling your story, and telling your story. That’s how you find healing. And you guys are doing that. You’re doing it right now. And I pray that you continue to find healing. Unfortunately, if you’re hearing this this podcast right now, this walk has already happened. It’s happening in September of 2025, but this is a, this is something that’s going to be ongoing. And I don’t know when you’re listening to this, but there will be an opportunity for you to be involved. The website is Walk for lives.org and it starts with awareness of the problem. We’ve all heard the word fentanyl before, but I didn’t [00:47:00] know until I was preparing for this, that this substance is so much stronger than heroin so deadly with just a. Microscopic amount of it. Richard, what have you learned as you guys through the inspiration of your beautiful, loving wife about this horrible epidemic that we’re experiencing around the world, about this drug?

[00:47:25] Richard: It’s the leading killer of our young people in the country. We didn’t mention that what killed our daughter took one quarter of a pill the size of an aspirin and a toxicology report told us it contained five times the lethal dose of the poison. That’s just let that soak in. That’s something just not much bigger than a pencil. That’s our daughter never had a chance. It’s, what happened to our daughter is catastrophic, but this is just so much bigger and we just feel [00:48:00] the need to communicate to unassuming parents how lethal and deadly this is. If we can, we just want to have an impact on somebody somewhere.

[00:48:10] Craig Robertson: Kim, there’s a mama listening to you right now who has daughters, who has sons who, you know maybe they’ve experimented with drugs, maybe they haven’t, maybe they’re experiencing depression. Maybe they aren’t, maybe they’re aware of it. Maybe they might, soon to be aware of it. What would you want to tell a room full of mothers in an attempt to avoid something like this impacting their family?

[00:48:37] Kim: I would definitely recommend them seeking help immediately. It’s the situation is dire and urgent. I wish that we had understood the urgency of the moment and the addiction, but it is so strong that the first time if they do [00:49:00] anything or they take a pill with fentanyl in it and they survive. They will never, ever forget that feeling is what we’ve been told from a counselor. The opioid feeling on the brain, they will never, ever forget it. And they will search for it again. It’s not a one time thing usually for most people. The addiction happens very quickly, but I would say that they should search for treatment immediately and.

[00:49:28] Craig Robertson: Immediately.

[00:49:29] Kim: Immediately. Yes. And, get an intake is what we’ve been told. Assess the situation, how long have they been doing this? How far is the addiction taken a hold of this person. We’ve been told that by a therapist that is the first thing to do is get an assessment and see a professional immediately.

[00:49:51] Craig Robertson: Yeah. Richard, any final thoughts?

[00:49:53] Richard: Even before, even when there’s not a problem j just the awareness of, we’ve [00:50:00] gone through the steps of preparing Katie’s story and we will share it at the walk on September 20th, and it’s led us, what would Katie say if she were here? And I think Katie would tell you, don’t be unassuming. Don’t think it won’t happen to you. This is so powerful that there are no gates or good schools or good neighborhoods that will protect you from this. The drug dealers, the drug industry is treating human lives like a cost of doing business. They are lying to people, they are selling deceptively marijuana. They’re selling ADHD pills, they’re selling cocaine. They’re selling all these things and they’re lacing it with this cheap fentanyl that is so deadly. And gosh there’s other drugs that are even coming out as the DEA is attacking the fentanyl. There’s other [00:51:00] drugs that are coming out, the cartels coming up with more deadly things as it is. If Katie was here to say to those parents it would or, and with even her peers, she would say just don’t do it, just stay clear of it ’cause you don’t, this is not the 1980s that we grew up in. This is a whole nother world that, one pill can kill right now.

[00:51:19] Craig Robertson: Bottom line is you do not know what you’re consuming unless you are getting it through the appropriate channels. That’s period. Full stop.

[00:51:30] Richard: Perfect.

[00:51:31] Kim: Yep. Absolutely.

[00:51:33] Craig Robertson: And I feel like I need to say that again. You do not know what you are ingesting buying drugs on the street. And they could be deadly with one dose.

[00:51:46] Kim: Absolutely. Or they could even get it from a friend. I’ve heard of situations where they’ve gotten Adderall from a friend so they could stay up late studying and they don’t know where that person got that Adderall [00:52:00] from. They don’t know if it’s a prescription of their own, their friend has a prescription, or did this friend get it from a drug dealer? That’s the danger. Is that if it’s not your prescription, do not take it. Don’t mess around with it. ’cause you’re playing Russian roulette with your life.

[00:52:17] Craig Robertson: Russian roulette with your life. Exactly. Guys, thank you for sharing your story. Kim, thank you for being so brave. My heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for you, Richard. What a beautiful human being Katie was. And thank you for honoring her in this way. And I’ll just close with this. May you both be filled with loving kindness. May you be safe and protected. May you be well and strong. May you be happy.

[00:52:49] Kim: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

[00:52:50] Richard: Thank you for having us.

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