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Man who posted video of him telling son his mother died appeared on The Doctors Monday
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Brenden Clark, the Youngstown man who posted a video on his Facebook page in October showing him telling his son, Cameron, 8, that his mother had died of a drug overdose, talked about it on the television show “The Doctors” Monday.
The video has been seen millions of times. Cameron’s mother, Lacy Wood, 29, of Warren, was found dead at the Riverview Motel, Warren police said.
Clark, 29, and his mother, Denise Dezee, both originally of Howland Township, discussed Brenden’s own addiction to opiates and the pervasiveness of drug addiction in the Warren area, where he has lived most of his life.
“People need to know what it does to our children,” he said of drug addiction. “Before I started using drugs, I was selling drugs. I wanted to fit in. Once I started making decent money selling drugs, I quit my job,” he said.
He said his relationship with Wood was rocky, and Clark was in an alternative-sentencing program when Cameron was born.
“Lacy and Brenden just couldn’t get their lives together,” said Dezee, who also appeared in Hollywood, Calif., on the show. “When Cameron turned 2 years old, I got full custody,” she said.
“When I came home from prison, Cameron was 4 years old,” Clark said. “I stayed straight for about a year, but I started hooking up with some old friends, started selling drugs again, and that’s when I got introduced to opiates and started using and was addicted ever since,” Clark said.
“Today I have 119 days clean,” Clark told the show’s hosts.
When host Dr. Travis Stork noted that people have accused Clark of posting the video for selfish reasons having to do with publicity, Clark responded: “I did it to open up the eyes of a lot of drug addicts in hopes that they would see what it does to our children, especially.”
Dezee said the hardest part of being Clark’s mom was watching him “wilt away, literally, dying in front of my eyes” from his drug addiction. “He was dying in front of my eyes. And I prayed every day for him.”
The last part of the show involved gifts that organizations gave to Clark, his mother and Cameron.
Because one of Clark’s “original goals” was to go to photography school, the show contacted KEH Camera, which is donating $2,000 worth of camera equipment and a $5,000 gift card for camera supplies to help him get started.
Cameron, who is a big Cleveland Cavaliers fan, will get to meet the team in person, Stork said.
The companies Sydney Paige Inc. and Lift 23 are donating free backpacks filled with school supplies to Cameron and all of the kids at the shelter where he and Dezee live, free socks and $5,000 to spend on clothing, food and furniture.