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E-mail StoryCalifornian Exclusive: Mother remembers son who was killed in sump accident
| Thursday, Mar 20 2008 11:36 AM
Last Updated: Thursday, Mar 20 2008 11:39 AM
Zane Anthony Newton, found Wednesday in a sump hole that collapsed on him, is the third son of Cindy Newton to die.
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An account has been set up at Kern Schools Federal Credit Union to help with funeral expenses for the family of Zane Anthony Newton.
People may go to any branch of Kern Schools and donate to the account which is called the Zane Anthony Newton Memorial Fund.
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Zane Anthony Newton
LaShonda Hollinquest, is a tutor at Planz Elementary School, where Zane Newton was a student. She visited the memorial for Zane and the spot north of Saint Helens Avenue, where he was found dead after and accident Wednesday afternoon.
People came from all around the neighborhood to pay their last respects to 9-year-old Zane Newton who died the day before on the other side of this fence in the sump. A memorial was set-up for him by friends and loved ones on Saint Helens Avenue and Kaiser Peak Court. The sign on the fence says "We all love you Zane! We miss you! Your in heaven now."
Technical investigators and a Bakersfield police detective process the scene where a boy, who was originally reported kidnapped, died after dirt collapsed on him in a sump near his home.
The media, along neighborhood residents, gather at the corner of Saint Helens Avenue and Kaiser Peak Court to hear Bakersfield police Public Information Officer Greg Terry, center, update the news on a boy who died in a sump nearby.
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The other two, Dillon and Andrew, died in the 1990s of genetic disorders shortly after their births, their mother said Thursday.
She remembered what a joy 9-year-old Zane had been in her life.
Now she wants Zane to be buried next to his brothers at Greenlawn Cemetery.
The 40-year-old mother said she took to chain smoking cigarettes Thursday morning — after she nearly quit the habit.
The day before she was even more on edge, she said.
“I was scared. All I felt was a tightness in my chest,” the mother said. “I thought, okay, it can’t be that cruel. They can’t take all my boys.”
She and the rest of her horrified neighbors, many of whom remembered Zane as a friendly kid who was always willing to help out, learned at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday that Zane’s body was buried in a city sump hole that collapsed on him.
Zane was apparently buried alive before 10:35 a.m. Wednesday. Another 9-year-old boy, who had spent the night with the Newtons and had been playing with Zane, reported a false shooting and kidnapping story.
The other boy said a man with a mask in a black car shot Zane in the shoulder and grabbed him, taking him in a black car with a white driver’s door.
Police swarmed the neighborhood and a statewide Amber Alert was issued.
At least one aspect of the boy’s story hadn’t rang true to Mrs. Newton. The boy had said the kidnapping was in retaliation for Zane beating up another child.
“I knew that couldn’t be true because my son never started a fight,” she said.
Now Mrs. Newton wants to know if there was a chance her son might have been saved if the right information had been reported right away.
“I want an autopsy,” she said.
In the meantime, she is dealing with grief that has become a familiar theme in her family.
Left at home is her 14-year-old daughter, Selinah, an 8th grader at McKee Middle School, and a 20-year-old half-sister to Zane, Gabri, who was put up for adoption as a baby but came back to live with the family a couple months ago.
Her husband of 17 years, Mark Anthony Newton, is also at home after losing his lower left leg and nearly losing his arm in a motorcycle crash a year and a half ago.
That crash changed the family’s plans to move to a rural part of Arizona to get away from the dangerous city with its gangs and school violence, Mrs. Newton said.
She grew up on her grandparents farm in Mansfield, Ark., population 1,000, and longed to go back to a ranch where she and Zane could raise horses.
“He loves animals and he was really excited about it,” she said.
In fact, Zane took care of two ferrets, Loki and Alfie, a Dalmatian dog, Free, and a cat, Mystic, who is pregnant, his mother said.
The boy “liked to be different,” she said. “He wanted to be like me, a hippie.”
That explained his hoop earring in his left ear — “he didn’t cry when it was pierced, he held his head up like a man” — and a mohawk haircut that was just growing out, she said.
Zane never shied away from work, even to the point of helping neighbor Mary Lou Rodriguez with her yard sales, or offering to clean the room of his friend, Gabe Bracamonte, his mother recalled.
And he enjoyed going to the First Southern Baptist Church on Columbus Street where he played games with other kids and sang in the choir.
Zane was adventuresome, learning new tricks on his skateboard and going into the sump with his bicycle. On Wednesday his bicycle sat in the garage, because thorns from the sump had flattened the tires, his mother said.
The hole which collapsed on him was off limits. His father, a former miner, had told him how dangerous that hole was, his mother said.
But Zane was also good about checking in with his parents every one or two hours.
“We were overprotective,” his mother said, “because of what happened to the other two boys.”
Mrs. Newton had been a dental assistant but she stopped working to help raise her children.
“Zane was a typical 9-year-old boy,” she said. “He was a good boy with a big heart.”
Just a couple days ago, the whole family went to a nickel arcade on Ming Avenue where they played games and ate ice cream.
“I’m glad we had that one last family time,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.