Robert “Robbie” Hrinuk backed sports teams both North and South: In New York it was the Giants; at Louisiana State University, where he had attended college, it was the Tigers. He had, wrote his family later, “an unwavering faith in mankind.”

He was unusually sensitive to people’s feelings, said his mother, Karen. As young as 4, she recalled, he would see someone coming to the door and rush to open it for them. And even as a teenager, said Karen, Robbie preferred the company of his family, including his younger brother and his grandparents.

Robbie’s drug use surfaced as he was winding up college, where he had studied international trade and finance. It wasn’t heroin -- he was deathly afraid of needles -- but OxyContin, which has a similar chemical make-up to heroin, and the same addictive potential.

“We never suspected and we never would have believed it,” said Karen of Robbie’s use of OxyContin and Xanax.

He agreed to seek rehab locally, and he seemed to have turned a corner.

But he was asked to leave after drinking, a violation of the center’s rules.

Robbie then moved into a sober home off of Southern Boulevard and Georgia Avenue in West Palm Beach. It was filled with relapsed heroin users, according to a police report -- and almost all had been told to leave by a sober home manager because of the rampant drug use.

Robbie alone was allowed to stay. He overdosed that day.

“As far as we know, that could be the only time he used heroin,” said Karen.

Robbie’s family wrote an obituary which made clear he had struggled with drugs. And they set up a GoFundMe site to raise money for other peoples’ drug treatment.

”The numbers of people dying is beyond staggering,” said Karen. In her former mile-long New Jersey neighborhood -- “a very middle class, very educated town” -- overdoses are rampant.

“If there was serial killer in my neighborhood killing 20-year-olds, we would all be going crazy trying to stop it.”

Robbie’s last text message to his family was to wish his father a Happy Birthday.

He was 26.