David Gears used heroin and, while he still could, asked two acquaintances to take him to a hospital. They refused, fearing prosecution for getting high themselves, according to a police report.

Instead, the pair told police, they put Gears into the bathtub of their hotel room in north St. Louis County to let him sleep it off while they finished using the drugs they had bought on the city’s south side.

Hours later, they did call for help. But Gears, of Belleville, was dead, at age 23.