Troy Marlowe (left) and Stacy Marlowe
A Mountain Home woman and her husband both entered guilty pleas during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Friday on charges of being involved in a plan to sneak contraband items to the husband who was locked up in the county jail.
Fifty-year-old Stacy Marlowe was sentenced to six years in prison with four suspended and two to serve and her husband, 50-year-old Troy Marlowe, was sentenced to six years probation for the roles they played in the criminal conspiracy. The difference in the sentences stemmed from the fact Stacy Marlowe committed the overt act of bringing the illegal substances into the court complex.
Stacy Marlowe was set to go on trial Friday and a jury had been selected to hear her case. After a short hearing in chambers, Circuit Judge John Putman announced that she “has chosen not to face a jury and has entered a guilty plea and been sentenced.” Troy Marlowe entered his plea immediately after that of his wife.
Both Marlowe’s were first arrested together in January last year when officers conducted a compliance visit on a home along Deb-Mar Woods Terrace, the registered address of Troy Marlowe who was on probation at the time.
During the search of the premises, officers found drugs and drug paraphernalia.
The drug case against Stacy Marlowe was dismissed by the state.
In the conspiracy to get contraband into the jail, Stacy Marlowe and 24-year-old Jarred Coddington were the outside individuals who assembled and then hid a tightly wrapped package in a mens restroom at the court complex in mid-February last year.
The plan was for an inmate being brought to court to ask to use the restroom, go in, retrieve the package and tape it to his body. It was then to be delivered to Troy Marlowe at the Baxter County Detention Center.
A jailer threw a monkey wrench into the plan when he went into the restroom located in the waiting area for the juvenile courtroom to check it before allowing any of the inmates to use the facility.
He found the package containing contraband items destined for Troy Marlowe.
After the package was found, video surveillance camera footage was reviewed. Coddington could clearly be seen going into the restroom and coming right back out.
He then holds the door for Stacy Marlowe who takes the package inside the restroom. After just a few seconds, both Marlowe and Coddington leave the scene.
Coddington was approached while still in the court complex. He told a number of stories about what he was doing and who was involved.
Investigators immediately began reviewing recorded telephone calls between the jailed Marlowe and his wife.
On the calls, he is heard giving her detailed instructions on what to put in the package and how to wrap the items up.
Marlowe and his wife continued to communicate even during the time she was in the court complex.
At one point, she tells her husband that the package has been intercepted and Coddington arrested.
Troy Marlowe is alleged to have told his wife not to worry, that she would not get into trouble.
He was wrong. She did.
Stacy Marlowe was arrested the day after the contraband plan had been foiled.
Coddington is serving a nine-year prison sentence for his part in the contraband plan and other charges. He is an inmate in the Cummins Modular Unit of the state prison system.
Troy Marlowe has been in prison recently on other charges, but records show he is now on parole.
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