himself by taking sleep aids and falling asleep in the tub. His grandmother managed to revive him. As he entered high school, John attempted the makings of what we call a normal teenage life. He was close with his two sisters. He studied art books from the library. His grandmother couldn’t afford to buy him gear to play soccer, but he found a karate studio that would let him take classes in exchange for teaching, and eventually he acquired a green belt. During his freshman year, John reconnected with his mother. She still took drugs and worked as a prostitute, and she convinced him to help her shoplift. “She would wear a backpack and put stuff in it and have me walk out with it,” he recalled. Asshe struggled financially, he tried to help her by stealing from other students at school. He was caught with another student’s music player, and along with fighting and truancy, he developed a record that would get him sent to alternative school for his senior year. Things continued to deteriorate at home. John drank. He was charged with domestic violence after his grandmother wouldn’t let him leave the house and he threw a small fan against the wall. She later convinced prosecutors to drop the charges.

On a summer evening before his senior year, John says he got a ride after karate from an older male member of his extended family—he still won’t say whom, an omission that has never looked good for him. They drove to a mobile-home park