“Just understanding that purchasing any drugs off the internet through non-reputable companies, there’s a high probability that you’re going to get something that has fentanyl in it,” McGowan said.
Everyone’s best friend
At 6-foot-5, 250 pounds, Josh, even at 17, loomed large when he walked into a room. It helped that he hewed toward the entertainer role with friends, and he was never shy about expressing strong views in class at Casa Grande High School.
Logan, 18, said Josh defended him during a fight, helped him open up and had a knack for making whoever he was with feel like the most important person in the world.
“He was my only friend for a long time,” Logan said.
For an almost comical number of people, Josh was known as their “best friend.”
“I think he was everyone’s best friend,” said Lee, 18, another friend.
That list included those who gathered for the memorial Lee hosted at the Phoenix Theater following Josh’s death, and a couple of homeless residents who memorialized Josh at Lucchesi Park following his death, his mother said.
The love that Josh inspired also meant that, for Shannon, the circumstances surrounding her son’s death — in his room, during online classes in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic — were unknown beforehand.
“They loved him, and they kept his secrets. Even dangerous, stupid secrets that should not have been kept,” Shannon said.
She didn’t know at the time that Josh had taken two Percocets and a Xanax — a so-called “sleeping bag” — the morning of Oct. 20, 2020. She didn’t know that he was on the phone with Matt when he fell asleep, or that Matt tried to get Josh’s sister to wake him up.
“I was like, ‘You gotta wake him up,’” Matt said.
And then, “‘Hey … I think you should go get your mom.”“
After the fact
When she found the jar of pills she suspects were responsible for Josh’s death, Shannon reflected on where he might have gotten them — how substance use, like so much in life, is based on trust.
“Josh got it from a friend that he trusted, and that friend got it from someone that they trusted, who got it from …” Shannon said, trailing off. “We don’t really know the origin.”
That unknown, and her very real fears that fentanyl’s prevalence could lead to more kids dying, helped push Shannon to share her family’s story. And her experience has also inspired her to reach out to others.
Josh’s death has had reverberations throughout his friend group as well.
Matt has sworn off hard drugs. He can’t say the same for other drugs — or other people in his life.
“I’m more for harm reduction than scaring them,” he said. “If they’re going to do it, they should at least do it safely.”
Lee, who bonded with Josh through a shared love of music, said Josh’s death was a wake-up call. Lee was doing cocaine, Xanax, and generally, “getting more into it.”
“It took Josh for me to be like, ‘Holy f***, what am I doing?’” they said.
Moving forward
In his first trip back to Shannon’s living room, where he and Josh had spent almost every day cuddling on the couch, he burst into “hysterical tears,” Shannon said.
“I said I was sorry, and I should have tried to wake him up sooner,” Matt said, his voice catching in that same living room 18 months later.
Shannon walked over and hugged him tight.
“I said it’s not your fault,” Shannon said this week, recalling the moment.
Matt describes the days and weeks that followed Josh’s death as “gray.” Shannon was frozen.
“We’re not supposed to outlive our children,” she said.
“I was frozen. I couldn’t do anything,” she said. “I was stuck in the mire and the muck of those feelings.”
Josh’s death is one of more than 50 in Petaluma since 2017. Through September 2021, he was the youngest to die from an overdose, according to data obtained from the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office.
