About this episode

Kathy Jones shares the tragic story of losing her grandchildren to fentanyl poisoning and her journey of advocacy following their deaths.

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses child death, fentanyl poisoning, overdose, CPR, and suicide in detail. Listener discretion is advised. On a snow day in January of 2024, Kathy Jones' daughter went upstairs to wake her two kids for school. Fifteen minutes later, this family's life split into before and after. Skylar was 14, an honor roll student who never met a stranger. Gage was 10, obsessed with dinosaurs and his pet turtle, Vicky. That afternoon, a fentanyl poisoning took them both, and their family went from a hospital waiting room they never got to sit in straight to a coroner's office. In this conversation, Kathy talks about the day that changed everything, the rumors and misinformation that followed, raising her surviving granddaughter, and why she now speaks at the Washington Monument and the White House so that Skylar and Gage are never just a headline. This is a story about a family that did everything right, and lost everything anyway. For The Hayters is a podcast that normalizes hard conversations. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling, you can call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Interview, narration, and editing…

People in this episode

Host: Becky Hayter

Guest: Kathy Jones

Topics covered

• child death
• fentanyl poisoning
• grief
• family
• advocacy
• mental health

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Washington Monument, White House, Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

More episodes of For The Hayters: The Stories We Survive

• Wallet Therapy: Credit Cards - Are You Using Them, or Are They Using You? · September 10, 2026 · 32 min
• A Mother, Two Suicide Attempts, and the Marriage That Came After | The Beautiful Disaster · September 6, 2026 · 53 min
• Wallet Therapy: The Bank Said Yes. Should You? · August 27, 2026 · 31 min
• 32-Year-Old Mom Faces Triple-Negative Breast Cancer · August 23, 2026 · 48 min
• Hydrocephalus, Brain Surgery, and Building an Ordinary Life Anyway · August 16, 2026 · 56 min
• Wallet Therapy: How Do I Prioritize My Money? · August 13, 2026 · 18 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the For The Hayters: The Stories We Survive podcast page.