Dying young eXaminer.com
EXAMINER/LACY ATKINS
Holding a portrait of Sharon Stout, her mother, Colleen Sasso, left, and sister, Audrey Sasso Stout, reflect on their loss. Sharon plunged to her death from a fire escape in March 1999.
Story in pictures
PART ONE
Lives cut short
Theirs was the age of confusion, of cocksure invincibility and runaway insecurity. And one by one they fell. Some died loudly, in full view, prey to gunfire or vehicle crashes. Others died in lonely back alleys or squalid motel rooms, casualties of illegal drugs or alcohol binges.
'Think about all the suffering'



Timeline of a family tragedy
The call that parents dread. The hospital. Come quickly. For an instant, Colleen M. Sasso lay in bed frozen.
A fatal fall, a family's anguish



Four lives, four deaths
Bullet from a wayward past found him
Heroin's grip a fatal vise
Wanderlust led to the ultimate abyss
She had 'the heart of a gunslinger'



EXAMINER/LACY ATKINS
Francisco Stillman, 15, gets a loving squeeze from his grandmother, Mary Louise Stillman, who says he "was going the wrong way" until she enrolled him in an intervention program.
Story in pictures
Tending troubled teens
When Francisco Stillman and his five siblings went to live with their grandmother, the 11-year-old was rushing headlong down a dangerous path. Both his parents were incarcerated — for long terms — and Francisco was bitter and angry, but most of all overcome by a crippling sense of powerlessness.
'He was going downhill'



Be very scared
"It gets ugly in here," warns Julius Domantay, 40, who has spent the last 23 years incarcerated for slaying a San Francisco liquor store owner.
A hellish cacaphony



Shock therapy
Amid the flurry of the emergency ward, Raymond Kuykendall slouches against a wall, miserable but stoic, determined to endure the evening with as much grace as he can summon.
A bloody wake-up call

Faces

A look at the 56 teenagers who lost their lives in San Francisco January 1997- March 1999.
1997
1998
1999

Memories

Friends look back at what was, or what could have been.
Death
Loss
Regrets

Hard facts

The numbers behind the stories.
Leading cause: Homicide

Resources

Want to know more?
Preventing tragedy



A family responds: A letter to the editor from the family of one teen who died.


Stories by Elizabeth Fernandez of The Examiner staff
Examiner photos by Lacy Atkins, Katy Raddatz and Julie Stupsker

Online package design by Jesse Garnier and Robert Hernandez
© 2000 San Francisco Examiner