FOLEY, Ala. — Rita Wolfinger, the mother of Ross Wolfinger, the 37-year-old Foley man charged this week with capital murder in the death of a Foley woman, isn’t just now living a nightmare. She has been living it for years.

The Daphne woman, who once worked the soda fountain at Stacy Drugs in Foley, isn’t excusing what her son has confessed to doing, namely, striking Judy Barney, 55, with a hammer and killing her during an argument over what authorities describe as drugs and money.

No, Rita wants people to hear her family’s side of the story and understand what her son once was. She wants them to know because they might have to one day call upon a system that she says is broken.

For her son, the foundation to an addiction to pain killers was laid at age 13, when he had shoulder surgery, Rita said. Her son tried pain management doctors over the years. In time, alcohol would become a factor too.

Rita names several area doctors that she alleges gave her son all the prescription drugs he wanted: “They gave it to him on a silver platter.”

Her assessment of Baldwin County Mental Health Association? “A joke.”

In 2001 or shortly thereafter, Ross overdosed and had a stroke. He was given the last rites at the Naval Hospital in Pensacola. Yet, he survived.

After that, “he was really good,” Rita said during a telephone interview on Thursday. He quit drinking.

“He tried very hard after having the stroke.

“I called agencies all over Florida and Alabama and nobody would take him in,” she said.

He eventually lost a good job locally when morphine was discovered in his locker.

“It broke my heart one more time,” Rita said.

“I just want other parents and people to realize the system … is broke. It will not support you,” she said.

“Realize the breaks in the system, the dead ends where there is nothing there. They’d rather see something like this happen (the alleged murder) and just throw them in jail and be done with it.”

Rita said her granddaughter Jessica, 18, Ross’ daughter, is on a mission of sorts. She wants to know why people living in the neighborhood around Judy Barney didn’t report the goings on at the house at 408 W. Section Ave., the traffic and people coming and going. Some of those neighbors are alleged by Rita to be active and retired law enforcement personnel.

Perhaps it’s the fact people had rather hide their heads in the sand, Rita said, noting that’s something she and her family understand as well.

“Early on, we couldn’t believe this funny, straight-A student could do this,” she said of the changes their son was beginning to manifest as a result of addiction.