Incarcerated mother strives to reunite with daughter, recover from drug addiction

Track marks dotting Lindsay Ramon’s arms are a constant reminder of an addiction that almost killed her.

Every day, Lindsay Ramon wakes in a cell with four other inmates at Madison Correctional Facility for Women. She should be preparing her 4-year-old daughter for kindergarten or taking her to Chuck E. Cheese’s. Instead, Ramon is in an intensive drug rehabilitation program, a task she is paid 12 cents a day to complete.

In August 2011, officers from the Bloomington Police Department arrested 26-year-old Ramon for theft and possession of a controlled substance when she tried stealing from a local hair salon, high on Xanax.

“You have to know there is going to be temptation when you get out,” Ramon said. “You have to be strong, and what I’m working on right now is getting myself stronger.”

If she wasn’t incarcerated, she knows she would be dead by now. With her boyfriend already dead from a heroin overdose, their daughter would be left an orphan.

***

About 100 people die from drug overdoses every day in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose death rates have more than tripled in the past decade.

While the misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers has resulted in more overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined, about half of prescription painkiller deaths involve at least one other drug.

In middle school and high school in Ellettsville, Ramon participated in choir, gymnastics and softball. In eighth grade she joined the cheerleading squad. She dreamed of becoming a fashion designer.

For years she scoffed at people who used needles to get high. Later, she became one of them.

When Ramon was 17 and at Edgewood High School, a boyfriend presented her with the Xanax he was getting from his grandmother.

At 18, Ramon’s sister-in-law introduced her to Jacob Cotton and the two began dating. Cotton had a prescription to both Xanax and methadone. Watching Cotton take both medications every day, Ramon became curious so she indulged.

Ramon enjoyed methadone highs but couldn’t bear the withdrawals. Her body felt like it weighed a million pounds. She needed to use the drug every day to go to work at the local Marathon convenience store.

“I remember times when it was a chore for me to jump into the shower and get ready,” Ramon said.

***
Ramon eventually moved in with Cotton at his Bloomington apartment.

Every morning, the two of them woke up and instantly went to find where they hid their pharmaceuticals the night before. It was usually in their closet, among Ramon’s large collection of clothes.

“It’s something a drug addict does, they hide their stuff,” Ramon said. “They hold onto it. It’s very valuable to them. It’s something they need to survive the next day.”

Together, Ramon and Cotton fueled each other’s drug addictions. They went to the movie theater and went to dinner at Golden Corral, her favorite restaurant, but they always went high.

Ramon became pregnant when she was 21. Cotton kept using the pharmaceuticals, but Ramon knew she would have to quit. She knew Child Protective Services would take her baby away if doctors found traces of drugs in her blood.

Then Gracie Mae Cotton was born. Three days later, Ramon used Xanax again and her addiction started right back up where it left off. In fact, her addiction
intensified.

Without drugs in their systems, neither Ramon nor Cotton wanted to get out of bed when Gracie cried.

To obtain more pills, Ramon and Cotton started driving to Indianapolis at 6 a.m. every day to visit Indianapolis Treatment Center’s methadone clinic. For $14 a day, the clinic feeds methadone to heroin addicts to end heroin dependency. But without a heroin addiction, the clinic’s methadone just fueled their high.

They made the trip to Indianapolis every single day for a year to get their fix, often bringing Gracie with them. To pay for the treatment and gas money, Ramon begged her mother for money, saying she needed it to buy diapers.

After a while, however, the methadone stopped getting them high.

They needed something new.

Suboxone, a drug intended to cure dependence of opoids such as methadone, was their next street drug of choice. When she was having a Suboxone withdrawal, every bone in her body hurt, so she was constantly high. When family came to visit to meet Gracie, she was high. When Gracie got old enough, Ramon and Cotton took her to
Chuck E. Cheese’s. But they were high.

In July 2010, officers from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department arrested Ramon and Cotton and charged the couple with child neglect after they were found panhandling with Gracie outside a Hardee’s restaurant, according to an article by the Indianapolis Star. Cotton had been using a hand-lettered sign to beg for money, holding Gracie’s arm as she became sunburned in the summer heat.

Cotton told police he was begging for gasoline money because Ramon had money stolen from her purse, but police found she was carrying $93 in cash. Police reportedly observed track marks on her arms.

Child Protective Services took custody of Gracie. Ramon’s mother eventually received custody.  

***

Ramon never thought she would inject drugs into her arms to get high. Cotton feared needles. When Ramon was in labor, Cotton passed out from the
epidural.

That changed Dec. 26, 2010. While Ramon was buying drugs in Indianapolis, Cotton was suffering from withdrawal at home. He couldn’t find pharmaceuticals to cease his sickness, so he injected heroin into his veins for the first time.

Ramon tried heroin four days later.

“We’ve gotta have more money,” Ramon told Cotton, recognizing the expense of their new addiction. “What do you think about me working at Night Moves?”

Cotton got furious. He did not want his girlfriend to be a stripper.

“I’m going to do it anyway,” Ramon said.

Then Cotton’s addiction took over. “Well, OK, it won’t be that bad,” Cotton said. “As long as I pick you up and I drop you off.”

In the evenings Ramon danced at Night Moves, a gentlemen’s club on Bloomington’s south side. The next morning, she stuck a needle in her arm before driving to Indianapolis for more drugs.

Driving to low-income, downtown neighborhoods, she stopped at houses with boarded-up windows. Typically, the houses were empty. Sometimes the heat wasn’t even turned on. The buildings were dedicated to drug deals.  

After the deal, they drove to the closest location — gas stations, church parking lots, peoples’ back yards — to shoot up. Then it was back on the road to Bloomington.

“There have been times where I didn’t even remember,” Ramon said. “I would wake up and we were back in Bloomington, or we were in Martinsville, if it was good.”

***

She’ll never forget the trip she took Aug. 23, 2010. That morning, Ramon and Cotton woke up and drove to Indianapolis for more heroin, just the two of them. Without their fix, Ramon’s withdrawal made her feel like she was dying.

Both Ramon and Cotton popped a few Xanax. After purchasing more heroin, they parked their car in a golf course parking lot. Cotton stuck Ramon with a needle, because she didn’t know how to do it by herself yet. Cotton then injected dope into his own arm before the couple dozed off.

After an unknown length of time, Ramon woke up and realized they hadn’t moved.  
“Jacob, get up,” Ramon said. “We just crashed out for a minute. Get up.”

He didn’t budge.

Ramon ran around the car to the driver’s side door, pulled him from the driver’s seat to the back seat and tried giving him CPR. When that wasn’t working, she jumped into the driver’s seat and drove to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, running two red lights on the way.

“Heroin and Xanax, heroin and Xanax,” she shouted to a nurse after running into the hospital.

Cotton never woke up. Mixing heroin and Xanax had deprived his brain of oxygen. The overdose killed Ramon’s boyfriend, and his death pushed her deeper into addiction.

Until she was caught.

***

Ramon moved into her grandparents’ house in Bloomington after Cotton died. Manipulating her Pentecostal grandmother, Ramon convinced her to drive her to get more drugs.

“Well grandma, I’m going to go regardless,” Ramon would tell her. “If you want me to go and get there safely, I suggest you take me.”

She used heroin at her grandmother’s house every day until she was arrested on Aug. 19, 2011. High on Xanax, Ramon went to get her hair cut at Fiesta Hair Salon on West Third Street in Bloomington. When she tried stealing $240.12 in hair care products from the salon, officers from the Bloomington Police Department arrested her for theft and possession of a controlled substance, Xanax.

“Xanax is a drug that makes you feel like nobody is watching you,” Ramon said. “Anyone who has been on Xanax will say, ‘you steal shit.’”

This offense triggered her inclusion in the Monroe County Drug Treatment Court. She completed her 30-day stay at a rehabilitation center and was placed in Amethyst House, a halfway house for people with addictions.

But she was kicked out for curfew violations.

After a two-week stay in Monroe County Jail, Ramon was moved back to her grandmother’s house, where she relapsed, using Xanax, heroin and crack
cocaine.

Still within the drug court’s grasp, she was instructed to report to Monroe County Community Corrections for a substance abuse class. When she missed a class, her case worker instructed her to walk to the Monroe County Justice Building on North College Avenue, just two blocks away, to appear for emergency court.

Walking the short distance, Ramon shot up on heroin before entering the courtroom.

“What are you on?” the judge asked. “What have you taken?”

Ramon denied being under the influence of anything, but the judge read the signs.

Ramon was sent back to jail, where she relapsed once more, popping Xanax in the Justice Building elevator between the jail and the courtrooms.

Ramon was terminated from drug court. She failed too many opportunities.

***

Ramon was escorted into Monroe Circuit Court Feb. 19 wearing a white, jail-issued jumpsuit. Recognizing her family in the courtroom, she smiled and waved. She blew her 30-year-old brother Thomas Ramon a kiss.

When the judge entered the courtroom, her attitude changed. Though she admitted guilt, Ramon and Defense Attorney Kara Krothe asked the judge to give Ramon a break. Ramon did not have a long list of previous convictions, Krothe said. She would work to get clean.

The defense attorney suggested home detention as the best outcome, but she would settle for a reduced sentence.

In a prepared statement, Ramon told the judge the eight-year maximum sentence would prevent her from raising Gracie. Sandra Davis, Ramon’s mother, said she was ready to come clean. Without a father in Gracie’s life, she was ready to be a caring mother.

“She said ‘I have to get this right this time, mom,’” Davis told the judge. “Gracie won’t be ashamed of the mistakes her mom made because she will be so proud of the obstacles her mom overcame.”

Prosecutor Erika Kroeger said that although Ramon did not have an extensive criminal record, she advised against home detention.

“From the very beginning she was adulterating or tampering with her drug tests, she was using substances,” she said. “We never seemed to make an impact.”

The judge said Ramon had failed time and again to get clean. Pounding her fist on the judge’s bench and raising her voice, Hon. MaryEllen Diekhoff, a judge for Monroe Circuit Court, asked Ramon “what’s different today?”

The judge said Ramon exhausted all other options, adding that because she was not Ramon’s family, she was not going to be polite. Ramon, she said, was no different than any other person who will say anything to stay out of the pen.

“You couldn’t stay sober from Community Corrections to get to this building without stopping and using,” Diekhoff said. “Every time we couldn’t find you, like your family, I believed you were dead. I came to the jail to see you. We spent a lot of time with you. You couldn’t go two blocks, Lindsay, two blocks without getting high. Two blocks.”

The judge said she was going to ensure Ramon never overdoses and leaves her daughter an orphan.

Ramon was sentenced to a purposeful incarceration, meaning that if she completes the DOC’s in-patient substance abuse therapeutic community Growth, Responsibility, Integrity and Purpose, she will be released in December.

“If I let you out of here right now, today, this minute, within four hours you would be high,” Diekhoff said. “Within eight there’d be a possibility you’d be dead.”

Ramon was first incarcerated at Rockville Correctional Facility, Indiana’s highest security prison, where she shared a space with the state’s most violent incarcerated women. On April 27 she was driven to Madison, Ind., past a skateboarding park and a small cemetery, and into the gates of Madison Correctional Facility.

***

Ramon is stuck looking at the track marks on her arms every day. Aside from the fear of how heroin affected her health, she has the fear of Gracie asking about them.

Being free of heroin for the first time since Cotton’s death, she is just now going through the grief stages of losing someone she loved.

Inside the prison, Ramon and other inmates in the GRIP program are secluded from the rest of the prison population, separating her from inmates who are undoubtedly possessing heroin or other drugs.

Although she was just granted visitation rights at Madison, the only communication she had with her mother and daughter since her incarceration was via telephone until those rights were given.

When Ramon is released from prison, she aspires to receive a degree in fashion design, move to New York City and create her own clothing line selling scarves and blue jeans.

But her first priority is to rebuild her relationship with the family she hurt for so long.

“Mama, even though you made bad decisions, I still love you,” 4-year-old Gracie told her on the phone recently.