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History: Mother says drugs were a problem
Ramsey Family Photo
Barb Ramsey says Timothy Hartford struggled for years with drug use.
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Published: April 26, 2008
Timothy Hartford grew up in Marion, a small city in southern Illinois, his mother, Barb Ramsey, said yesterday from her home in Kernersville.
Yesterday, Hartford and his girlfriend, Ashley Smith of Kernersville, were charged with first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two people in Winston-Salem on Thursday. Ramsey said that their 1-month-old baby, also named Timothy, who was in the car at the time of his parents' arrest outside a mall in Norfolk, Va., is in state custody there.
The trail from small-town Illinois to the Norfolk City Jail has drugs as the common touchstone, Ramsey said.
Hartford started using drugs in high school and never quit, she said.
"This is not the kid I raised," she said. "He's been on that (drugs) for 20 years. How do you get somebody off that?… People will do whatever they have to for drugs."
Sitting in a home adorned with portraits of her son and family, Ramsey said she did her best to push her son to kick drugs.
She said that he had just finished a long stint in prison when he came to live with her in December 2006. The husband of one of his sisters gave him a job, and Ramsey said she was feeling upbeat about her son's progress. She even bought him an entertainment system with a DVD player for his birthday in March 2007.
Not long after, though, the DVD player was gone, and Ramsey said she started getting the feeling again that her son was using. A similar thing had happened about 10 years ago; he stole a car, jewelry and money to pay for drugs, she said.
Last spring, one of Ramsey's daughters told her that Hartford had been going by a section of Old Greensboro Road known as "Cracktown."
About May, Ramsey said, she demanded that Hartford get treatment.
"I just didn't want him in my house. I know it's terrible for a mother to say that about her son. But he was an addict," she said. "He had this ‘poor me' syndrome. I felt like he needed a program. He's not the only one in the world that had bad times."
Hartford agreed to get help.
It was during the six or so weeks in rehab that he got together with Smith. About June, they conceived their son, who was born last month. Ramsey said that the last time she saw her son was when he stopped by the house with the baby, who was just a few days old.
Ramsey said she is worried that the baby has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Hartford has had the virus for about 10 years, she said. Whether the baby has the virus is something that the family might have to deal with because one of Ramsey's grown daughters has contacted state authorities about keeping the baby, she said.
As for her son's involvement in the Jonestown Road shootings, Ramsey said that when she got word about the shootings, she got a chill, especially after hearing that one of the suspects was going door to door asking people for water for a baby. She said that instinct told her that it was her son.
Still, she said yesterday, it is hard to believe it all.
"It hasn't sunk in yet, really. I'm hoping that it's not true. I just don't know what could have happened," she said.
■ Bertrand M. Gutierrez can be reached at 727-7283 or at bgutierrez@wsjournal.com.
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