It was not a merry Christmas for a woman alleged to have left a glass methamphetamine smoking pipe on the floor of an apartment where children had access to it, sparking a fight with her boyfriend and bringing police to the scene.
Twenty-four-year-old Veronica Edkins, who listed a Flippin address when arrested, entered a guilty plea to drug-related charges stemming from the incident during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
She was put on probation for four years and ordered to spend 15 days in the Baxter County Detention Center on weekends and complete a parenting class offered by the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
On Christmas day last year, Mountain Home police went to a local apartment complex where Edkins had requested an ambulance after injuring her leg in the fight with the boyfriend.
Officers reported they were finally able to enter the apartment after repeatedly knocking on windows and doors without response. They found Edkins in the living room with two children and her boyfriend in the back bedroom with a third child.
The boyfriend, who was bleeding from a cut above his left eyebrow where Edkins had punched him, said the dispute between the couple was triggered when Edkins left the methamphetamine smoking pipe on the floor where the children in the apartment could get to it. He told officers Edkins had hidden the pipe in her bra. Officers requested she pull the undergarment out straight. As she complied, officers noticed she was attempting to pinch something inside the bra to prevent it from falling out.
She eventually pulled out two black socks containing methamphetamine.
The boyfriend told officers he believed Edkins had been using methamphetamine for approximately two months. He said he suspects she sneaks out and goes to a neighbor’s apartment to smoke methamphetamine.
Edkins was charged with a felony count of possessing methamphetamine, third-degree domestic battery and endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree.
The court sentenced her under provisions of Act 346, the first offenders law, meaning if she stays out of trouble during her probation period, she can apply to the court to have her record sealed.
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