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.

"The first time I heard it, I didn't think it could happen," he says. "How could anyone want to hurt him? When I heard it from someone else I went to see my mother. I just broke down and cried."

Bo Oates was on vacation in Florida when he got the news about Newton.

"My children could tell something was wrong and asked what was the matter," he says. "I felt sick, just devastated. Randy was just a really good person."

Oates is currently the basketball coach at Chattahoochee County High School. He coached Newton two years at Hardaway. He was one of three head coaches Newton played under.

"I remember one game his junior season," Oates says. "We were struggling. We were 8-18. Well, we're playing this game against a very athletic Upson-Lee team and Randy just takes over in the fourth quarter -- I mean in every area -- and leads us to victory."

Still, it's not Newton's basketball skills that made him stick out.

"This was a very personable young man who would do anything for you," Oates says. "You could count on him."

Another of the point guard's basketball coaches was Kendall Mills, currently the Hardaway coach. "Randy would call me every month or so and let me know how everything was," Mills says. "I talked to him about a week or so ago. He asked when we were going to have another open gym. We planned to play basketball at the school."

Mills says Newton was respectful and always apologized for a mistake made on the court. He always told Mills, "Coach, I'll do better next time."

Hardaway Principal Matt Bell last saw Newton at Arby's in Peachtree Mall, where the young man was working. Newton asked Bell when the school gym was open so he could work out.

"They weren't that busy so we had a heart-to-heart," Bell recalls. "I told him he needed to be in school somewhere. I said, 'Don't worry about playing ball; just get your butt in school.'"

Bell remembers Newton's smile.

"His smile was just contagious," he says. "He was happy to be around adults and coaches. A lot of kids are uneasy around adults, but he wasn't."

Bell says that Newton wasn't an outstanding student, but he "showed up every day and put forth a lot of effort."

Bell was out of town when he got the news about Newton and Kilgore.

"I thought, 'No, not those two,' " he says. "They were the last two individuals you would think this would happen to. This just goes to show that one decision can make or break you. My heart goes out to their families. I know they're trying to put the pieces of this together."

A family remembers

"Even as a little boy," says his mother, Judy Newton, "Randy was no trouble. I never had to whip him. Not once."

She says he was popular. "There was always someone stopping by wanting him to go to the courts. That's what he loved, to play ball."

Mary Ingram didn't know Kilgore well, but wasn't surprised they were friends. "Everyone got along with Randy," she says. "His friends would always be asking us when he was coming home."

And he was popular in the neighborhood. "My friends tell me he was more respectable than their own children," Mary Ingram says.

"This neighborhood helped to raise those boys," says an uncle, Bernis Webb. "Now the younger ones look up to him. They must be hurting a lot."

After serving in the military for 10 years, Webb began to sell cars. He is currently business manager for Charleston Mitsubishi in Charleston, S.C.

When Webb drove to Columbus for the reunion, he had Randy drive down a car he'd sold to a friend. "He beat me back to town," Webb says of Randy. "I helped both of the boys as they were growing up and so they wanted to be close to me."

Asked if the family had any idea who could have done this or why, Webb remarks, "That's what we want to know."

The funeral for Randy Newton Jr. is at 2 p.m. Saturday at Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Seale, Ala. Visitation will be at Progressive Funeral Home on St. Marys Road in Columbus from 2 - 7 p.m. Friday.