Jerome Cabral was the first of Pastor Bruce Smith's children. He was born "into the family business," which at the time happened to be drug-dealing, Smith said.
Jerome's father spent about 20 years selling and using drugs. Father and son did it together and one day, Jerome kept going, even when his father found faith and stopped.
"Jerome's life was my mistake," said Smith, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Hyannis. "I wasn't a good role model."
As Bruce and his wife, Carolyn, immersed themselves in their church, Jerome went off the deep end with drugs and crime. He served five years in state prison for dealing drugs.
But for the last two years of Cabral's life, father and son cooked the church dinners together and ran a landscaping business. Jerome called himself the world's greatest Red Sox fan, according to his obituary.
In 2009, however, Jerome, age 33, relapsed once and overdosed on heroin at his home in Hyannis, leaving his wife and five children.
Cabral believed in God, and it gives his father comfort that "he was saved," Smith said.