The Ohio boy photographed in the back seat of an SUV as his grandma and a male friend lay zonked out on heroin knew his “grammy” messed up, the child’s great-grandmother said in a new interview.
“My grandma got in trouble,” the 4-year-old said to Barbara McCullough, she told Fox 17 West Michigan. “And I said, ‘Well, honey, your grammy’s maybe a little sick.”
McCullough, 84, who said she raised the child most of his life, insisted the boy was protected from the rampant drug use by both his mother and grandparents.
“He was not raised like that. No way,” McCullough insisted.
She took him in as her own when he was just 1 week old, noting that her granddaughter, admitted crack smoker Reva McCullough, 25, was unfit to properly care for a child.
“I thought when we took him, we took him for his safety and that she would eventually straighten up and make an effort to take the baby back,” the eldest McCullough said.
The boy’s grandmother, 50-year-old Rhonda Pasek, had only been granted custody of him six weeks before the overdose, which went viral in a photo posted by police that showed her and her boyfriend slumped over in the car with the tot in the back seat.
“It’s terrible,” McCullough said of the incident.
“I cannot imagine her ever doing something like that with that child in the car because I truly believe she did love him,” she added. “And he loved her, dearly.”
The boy is now being cared for by his great-aunt and great-uncle in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which McCullough said will be good for him.
McCullough added that Pasek won’t be seeing the youngster anytime soon.
“I don’t think she deserves another chance,” McCullough said. “She was an adult. She knew what she was doing.”