Tuesday, Jul. 24, 2007

Newton dreamed of going to NBA

Patio furniture, sign of a weekend family reunion, still fills the carport at the Doyle Avenue home of John and Mary Ingram.

"No reason to take it down now," Mary Ingram says, sighing. "We'll just need it for the funeral."

The Ingrams are the aunt and uncle of 21-year-old Randy Newton Jr., murdered along with his friend, Bryan Kilgore, on Friday.

Leaving the party

Reunion festivities ran well past midnight Friday. Raymond Newton, the victim's brother, and John Ingram had both just nodded off to sleep. Mary Ingram was still cleaning at 3 a.m. when the coroner's office delivered the bad news.

"Naturally, we were shocked," John Ingram says. "We just didn't know what to say."

The Newton boys were raised in this house by their grandmother, Alice Webb, and the Ingrams.

"Randy never gave us a lick of trouble," Mary Ingram says. "Never. If there was trouble he was going to leave it in a hurry."

Raymond Newton is a year older than his brother Randy. Both graduated in the same 2005 class at Hardaway.

"That was a special day," he says of the ceremony. "We were proud. We didn't have a party of our own, but we went to a lot of others."

Raymond Newton attended Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., and will be at the University of South Carolina this fall. He plans to walk on and win a spot on the football team.

For approximately 18 months, Randy had been living with him and working at an Arby's restaurant in Columbia. He planned to enroll at Benedict this fall.

"We were very close," Raymond Newton says. "We liked to sit and talk about the past and the future. He played basketball for Brooklyn Baptist Church in Columbia and was hoping to play college ball, too."

Raymond Newton and other family members said they don't know why or when Randy left the party.

"There were a lot of people," John Ingram says.

Raymond Newton says that Kilgore, whom he also considered a friend from high school, stopped by the reunion early in the evening in a car, left, then returned in a truck. Some time later, Randy Newton and Kilgore left. Neither returned.

Raymond Newton says he was concerned.

"I kept sending him text messages," he says. "Randy might not always answer my phone calls, but he always returned a text message."

Popular athlete

Brandon Jackson used to get telephone calls from Randy Newton, but it wasn't always his best friend's voice on the other end.

"He liked to pull pranks on me," Jackson says. "He liked to pretend he was a college coach interested in offering me a college scholarship."

Jackson says he didn't fall for any of his buddy's gags.

"But I sure will miss those telephone calls."

Jackson played four years of basketball at Hardaway High along with Newton.

"He always talked about playing in the NBA," Jackson says. "It was a big dream, probably one that had no chance of coming true. But it was his dream."

The two did "normal" teen stuff together -- a lot of basketball, a lot of video games.

Jackson says he couldn't believe the news.