I liked how my friend Ben showed kindness to everyone, seemingly treating wealthy friends the same as he did beggars on street corners. He was down to earth and often provided free services to the indigent. Those traits eventually dissolved in a sea of despair.

I had never witnessed the violent uncontrollable rage inside my friend. His charming side was more outwardly prevalent. Regardless, his risky, immoral and irrational lifestyle eventually spilled out in the open. Alarmingly disturbing behavior had surfaced before and after the state approved his license to practice for nearly 20 years. The continuous renewal of that status served Dr. First in dreadful ways.

It became his calling card for preying on women, especially those many years younger.

My friend knew how to subtly work his occupation into any conversation, especially with women. Although he didn’t hit on them all that much in my presence, Dr. First often showed me pictures of dozens of hopefuls clawing for his attention. Despite juggling several phones at times, he didn’t exactly hide the breadth of affairs crowding his contact list, including from his wife Mary or their three sons.

Many of the women, usually young and attractive, vied for the opportunity to see him. It struck me like a game, with Dr. First reigning as king. One late evening, as we finished playing chess at a favorite local wine bar, he contemplated his next move before departing. He pondered aloud the pros and cons of all those at his beck and call. I could tell it amused him and likely thought I was impressed. His endless womanizing did make an impression on me – of a man with everything no longer wanting anything meaningful.   

Ben considered me his best friend. I kept his confidences uneasily, not sensing the depth of his depravity until June 5, 2019. He was 51, an accomplshed maxilliofacial surgeon yet addicted to women, violence, alcohol and drugs, including nitrous oxide he liberally abused from office supplies at his practices.

I was in stunned disbelief when I got the call early that morning from Mary, Ben’s ex-wife, hours after his murder-suicide. Killing himself is something I had once expected but taking another life – of an innocent 52-year-old woman I got to know for almost as long as he did (just six months) – overwhelmed me. I couldn’t talk about the tragedy for a couple of years. However, I knew I had to tell the story to hopefully make a difference, because I didn’t do enough beforehand.

A deep yet twisted connection
We shared a lot about ourselves, but it took years for me to know Ben wasn’t always honest. After we started regularly hanging out, he talked about a former practice where dental partners supposedly insisted Dr. First enter a treatment program for what he called “bad habits.” I remember him saying, “I was angry and frustrated with everything and everyone,” before telling me how much it helped him.

I had no reason to doubt my new friend, but I found out the truth about what happened years later – from his mother Nanci. She explained that Mary had called her at her Miami residence early one morning in 2003, panicking. An assistant at Dr. First’s New Port Richey office, which he opened in 2001, had contacted Mary to say his car was on the lot but he wasn’t responding to their loud knocking. Ben had the only key. Mary assumed the worst and needed sound advice fast.

Nanci initially suggested calling the police, which Mary balked at given the heightened potential for damaging media coverage. Instead, they settled on Nanci contacting an interventionist to handle what they suspected – Dr. First unconscious in his office from an overdose of nitrous oxide.

“The guy we hired was able to get into the building and basically found Ben passed out, hooked up to the gas,” Nanci explained. “He had to drag him out and take him to a rehab facility, as we requested.”

Ben recalled the experience as “humbling,” when he told me about it. He described an epiphany, realizing that being a doctor didn’t make him better than anyone else. “I became a changed man,” he claimed.

Dr. First actually left the rehab program prematurely, many weeks early – yet agreed to mandatory urine testing to continue operating. Although he reflected on the positive aspects of what occurred, he evidently disdained it. As a result of Nanci and his father Donald subjecting him to rehab, Ben ceased talking to them for more than a decade. He also blocked access to their grandchildren. In his mind, his mother and father prevented him from making money while putting his license at risk. Ben, of course, couldn’t accept any responsibility – or admit he needed the intervention to literally help him back on his feet.

Instead, he detailed how he used a son’s urine to “trick the tests,” something Dr. First had become quite adept at doing. He and Mary then had three sons and a wealthy lifetime of hell ahead.