'I got up every morning for that boy': Grieving mum speaks of overdose tragedy

Tyrone Woxvold's mother loved everything about her son.

He was a cheeky, adorable kid who loved the family dog, Angel, and was always friendly to their neighbours.

But as he grew up, the child she knew started to "lose his smile a bit more each day", as he was introduced to drugs in his early teens and began using ice on a daily basis.

Tyrone was tragically found dead by his mother on the bathroom floor on Saturday morning after a heroin overdose. He was a few weeks shy of his 16th birthday.

The unit where he died was a few hundred metres from the controversial medically supervised injecting room in Richmond, which opened in mid-2018. Tyrone's death has sparked renewed discussion from all sides of politics about the centre.

But for his mother, Carolyn Woxvold, seeing her son's death pulled into the debate has been difficult to watch.

"It’s pissed me off," she said. "It's all politics."

Ms Woxvold, who supports the supervised injecting room, says her son's death has "nothing to do" with the centre.

She believes her son would not have used the injecting room but still thinks it serves a critical role for many users in the community.

This week, Victorian Youth Minister Gabrielle Williams said the teenager's death was an "absolute tragedy", but added it was important not to lose sight of the injecting room's value.

The Greens said the death showed the age restrictions at the centre should be scrapped, while Liberal MP Georgie Crozier said on Thursday Tyrone's death "demonstrates the accessibility of drugs in an around that area and the honeypot effect that is there".

Ms Woxvold, who has had her own experience with addiction in the past, has a different view.

"Richmond is not flooding with drugs," she said. "It hasn’t suddenly been flooding with drugs, it’s always been here and always been everywhere in Australia and Melbourne."

"I hear residents say 'since the injecting room has been here the crime rate has gone up'. Do you know what? I’ve been around Richmond for a long time, do you know where they used to inject up? In the car park next to the primary school where parents are walking straight past to their car."

Ms Woxvold on Thursday remembered Tyrone as her "pride and joy".

"I loved everything about him," she said.

"I got up every morning for that boy. You have no idea. No love like it. I’d do anything for that boy, swim across oceans for him, climb mountains for him.

"He was a handful, he was Mummy’s little boy, he was beautiful and adorable. He was a good-looking boy. He always wanted to be next to me. All he ever wanted was to be by my side."

"He was very affectionate, loving, but on the other side he was a very troubled, traumatised boy. Unfortunately, because he lost his father at a young age and I lost my husband."

Over ten years ago, Ms Woxvold – who herself had a troubled childhood – found herself a widow caring for two young children aged under two and struggling to cope.

She moved Tyrone into the care of his grandfather, where he spent much of his childhood, before she was in a better position to look after her son in January this year.

"I thought I was doing the best thing for them. I thought I could break the cycle but I ended up creating a boy that was lost because he didn’t know where he belonged. He was only starting to realise in the last 12 months how much he meant to me," she said.

"He was still learning to be back with me. He was getting used to it and feeling his way. Every day I was proving it. But showing it is hard, when someone is traumatised, a lot of effort goes into showing them that again."

At the time of his death, Tyrone was spending most of the week with his mother, sleeping on the couch of the small one-bedroom flat in Richmond where Ms Woxvold cares for an elderly friend.

But Tyrone was starting to become more and more unhappy as he reached his mid-teens, falling further into drugs which he found easily available on Melbourne's streets.

"He thought he wasn’t attractive and couldn’t get a girlfriend, that no one would want him – he thought all these crazy thoughts that were so far from the truth," she said.

“He realised he started losing weight [from taking ice] and that weight factor was overpowering."

“The moment he started losing weight, he thought he looked drop dead gorgeous, that's when the selfies started coming out. But his smile started fading as well.

“Then he became so addicted he was using every day he could get his hands on it," she said.

Tyrone also wanted his mother to move into a home that was just the two of them.

“Tyrone was wanting to get a place. I said we were only staying here because that’s all I had. I was on a waiting list for a house. I said I’m trying to keep a roof over my head because I don’t have anywhere to go," she said.

“By that time he had more and more drugs trying to deal with all these things, and going deeper into a hole. I was trying to pick him back up out of it. Each day that went by, he was losing hope.

“He lost his smile more and more each day,” she said.

On Sunday morning, before he died, Ms Woxvold said she believes her son, who normally uses ice, couldn’t get his hands on any and "the next best thing he could get his hands on was heroin".

“He didn’t want to die. It was accidental. He didn’t know what he was doing," she said.

“I couldn’t stop him. No matter how much I tried to teach him and tell him, from experience, don’t go down this path."

Ms Woxvold says her situation was made harder by cracks in the system that was meant to protect her son and says the services and support he wanted wasn't available when he needed it most.

“It can happen to any family, not just those who have experienced trauma or are from a poor area," she told The Age.

“I want to say to parents, ‘don’t turn your back on them’. I know it can be hard ... you can’t turn your back, no matter how hard it gets.

“You’re the one thing that can save them. They need you."

A fundraising page has been set up to help the family cover the costs of the funeral, which is expected to take place on Friday.