Holly Gillis

July 1, 2006

21 years old

The death certificate for Holly Gillis will say she died on July 1 at the age of 21.

Her family and friends say she died about two years ago. The killer was heroin.

"She wasn't herself anymore," said Joan Gillis, Holly's 50-year-old mom. "Her passing started several years ago."

The Gillis home was filled with food and people last week. A large fruit and cheese platter sat in the middle of a coffee table. Crackers, muffins and blueberry cobbler were nearby.

Since Holly's death from an apparent overdose, neighbors and friends have been stopping by and sending over food, said Joan Gillis, a homemaker with two advanced degrees.

"When it gets quiet, it gets hard," said Holly's father, Philip, an engineer for Lucent Technologies.

Holly's death has been the talk of the town. Message boards -- both the kinds adults use, such as www.myhanovertownship.com, and the kind teenagers use, such as myspace.com -- have been filled with comments about Holly.

The messages also are about heroin at the two high schools that are a part of the regional school district. Police are investigating the death of a second former student to determine whether it also was heroin-related.

If Holly's death has a purpose, her friends and family said, it is to uncover the drug problem in the Hanover-area high schools -- particularly with heroin.

Holly didn't have to be a martyr. She was full of promise, her friends said.

An abstract painting she made in the first grade still hangs in a frame by the stairwell in her Nemic Lane home.

A cluttered bookshelf in the living room has a row of handmade journals, which she made with her younger brothers.

She even started her own newspaper, The Whippany Press. She could have been a lawyer or a journalist, Philip said.

The troubles for Holly started not long after she turned 13. She weighed 98 pounds and felt fat, her friends said.

As she got older, she found fewer outlets to expend her emotions, energy and time.

Drugs and alcohol became ways to cope, "to numb the pain," Holly's friends said. She became addicted to heroin in high school, Joan said.

Her drug use was veiled by outstanding grades, a 1420 SAT score and other glimmers of brilliance.