The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Girl, 4, tells police her father, granny are snorting pills




Authorities say a four-year-old girl told a Jenkins police officer that her father and 73-year-old grandmother crush and snort pills.

Police and social workers found in plain sight drug paraphernalia and prescription medicines — some of which were narcotics — inside a house located at 74 Cottage Row in Jenkins, according to Jenkins Police Sgt. Jim Stephens.

Robert Michael Wright, 55, gave police consent to walk through the house on Feb. 7 when law enforcement responded to an anonymous telephone call informing Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that residents at the Cottage Row house were using drugs with syringes in the presence of a child.

Jenkins Police Officer Josh Richardson wrote in a citation that “in plain sight was a dinner plate with white powder believed to be a crushed pill with three white chunks of a white pill lying beside the plate.”

After being informed of his legal rights, Wright told police he had snorted a Lorcet 10, according to the citation.

Police found a round, white pill in the grandmother’s room where the four year old sleeps, according to the citation. The plate and pills were in reach of the four year old, Stephens said.

Richardson asked the four year old to whom the plate belonged, and she told him about her father and grandmother crushing and snorting the pills, Stephens said.

Loretta Mullins, the child’s grandmother, told Stephens when the child finds pills lying around the house she brings the pills to her or her father, Stephens said.

While police were at the residence on Feb. 7, Mullins attempted to add pills to a prescription bottle to try to make the pill count current, according to court documents.

Mullins told police she was having chest pains. Before Emergency Medical Services arrived, Wright tried to hide a bag with several pills, according to a citation.

Wright was arrested and charged with first-degree wanton endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.

Mullins was not arrested because she was admitted to the Whitesburg Appalachian Regional Healthcare hospital. She has since been released. Mullins has been charged with first-degree wanton endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.

Wright is scheduled for arraignment in Letcher District Court at 11 a.m. on Feb. 19. Arraignment for Mullins is set 11 a.m. on Feb. 26.

The child has been placed with other family members pending a court hearing.



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