“The first dose of meth that Wade ever took, she gave it to him,” Burch said.
Burch’s younger sister and brother-in-law, who both struggled with drug addiction, moved into the house about the same time Wade arrived. Later that year, Burch sent Wade to live with her parents as she was fighting cancer. He was charged with underage drinking, Burch said, and spent the night in the Mobile County Metro Jail. Sometime during the evening, he took a drug that had a nasty effect on him, and he was arrested for the first time. One night when he was 16, Wade made it into Club Atlantis, where his sister worked. Wade and his buddies bought the drugs from gas stations or corner stores. Wade's first his encounter with drugs, as far as Burch knew, was with synthetic cannabinoids (or synthetic marijuana), an unregulated, dangerous type of designer drug sold under brand names like Spice and K2. “But he didn’t want to keep you from having things when you didn't have the advantages that he had.” A bad habit But when the needy family that was staying with them for the holidays came by, he gave it away. One Christmas, he got the nearly $700 television he’d been asking for. The money he earned went to things most teenage boys might buy: new shoes, clothes, a weight bench for working out.īut he always gave money away more easily than he spent it, Burch said. Once he turned 13, Wade started working with his father, Paul Burch, at Coastal Stucco. “ worshipped Timothy,” Burch said. “They all did. His brother, Timothy, tried to teach him about the Bible, Burch said. He loved to hang out with his siblings, too. “He excelled at everything he did with little to no effort,” Burch said. He brought home as much as $40 some days before his teacher made him stop selling his art, Burch said. He made drawings of Yu-Gi-Oh characters that his elementary school classmates liked enough to pay for. “He just never needed it.”Īs he grew up, his talents started to blossom. “He was the only kid I ever got who never had a single whupping his entire life,” she said. He was the baby of the family, and Burch hardly had to discipline him. Born in 1992, Chadrick Wade - Burch calls him Chad - was always the goofiest of his siblings.