Justin Fawcett was 20 years old when he died of a drug overdose in his bedroom–just a month after learning that he would be required to register as a sex offender for the next 25 years.
The crime that landed Justin on the Michigan sex offender registry was a consensual sexual relationship with a 14-year-old high school classmate when he was 17.
Justin’s parents, who say their son was despondent after learning that he would be placed on the registry and hopeless about the future, became advocates for more sensible registry laws in Michigan. Ultimately, Michigan did implement some changes to protect underage “sex offenders,”–seven years after Justin’s death.