Harrison Resident's Death Was Overdose: ME

To no one’s surprise, the toxicology report has come back on John DeFonce, the 20-year-old Harrison resident who died in October 2015, and it was a drug overdose, The Journal News reports.

A former football player at Harrison High School, DeFonce had taken prescription painkillers and then become addicted to heroin, The Journal News reported in 2015. He had recently completed a substance abuse treatment program in Putnam County and was living in a halfway house in White Plains.

According to the Westchester medical examiner, DeFonce, who appeared in a Journal News video about pain pill addiction, succumbed to “acute drug intoxication,” TJN reports. He had heroin, cocaine and an amphetamine in his system.

“John was a gentle soul. He loved his family and all God’s creatures. He had a good heart. He is finally at peace,” his family said in the obituary in October.

In the article, The Journal News talked to his parents and experts about the difficulty substance abuses have staying away from drugs after rehab.

The scope of the area’s drug problem is reflected in stark numbers: More than 230 heroin-related deaths in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam since 2010 and more than 170 deaths attributed to painkillers.

Read the entire article on lohud.com.