A woman charged with multiple counts of theft and with sneaking drugs into the county jail appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday (May 19) and entered a plea of not guilty.
The charges against 30-year-old Sierra Elizabeth Campbell include 10 counts of possession of a controlled substance, residential burglary, breaking or entering, theft of property, furnishing prohibited articles and second-degree criminal mischief.
Members of a U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force were in Baxter County April 17 looking for a male fugitive wanted on a parole violation.
The unnamed male was also said to have an active Baxter County warrant out on him on a burglary charge.
The task force was tipped that the fugitive might be found in the southwestern section of Mountain Home. He was spotted and officers followed his vehicle toward Gassville.
The vehicle was reported to have exited U.S. Highway 62/412, pulled into a storage complex in Gassville and parked between two of the buildings.
The male and a female passenger, later identified as Campbell, exited the vehicle but were said not to have strayed far from it.
Task force members blocked the two individuals in the area where they had parked and took both into custody without incident. Campbell was discovered to have active arrest warrants issued by the Mountain Home Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff’s office.
There were a number of items discovered in the vehicle. Campbell claimed she had purchased them at a yard sale the day before for $50.
She was also said to have told the officers she had purchased the items from an unnamed male on Cannie Baker Road for $50.
Officers noted that one items in the vehicle was worth well in excess of the total sale price Campbell had said she paid.
Campbell was also hazy on details as to the exact location where she purchased the items, including an air compressor and fishing equipment. A checkbook in the name of a Eureka Springs man, a health insurance card and two bank cards belonging to a female were also found.
She told officers she was homeless and staying with a friend but would not identify the person or divulge where the friend lived.
On the Baxter County Detention Center log, she is listed as having a Gassville address.
Campbell ran into another problem with her stories when she said she and the male were going to drop off all of the items at her storage unit located in the complex. The owner of the storage facility was contacted and he said neither Campbell nor the male she was with rented a unit from him.
A marshal conducted a pat down of Campbell and located old coins, paper money, medallions and other items in her pants pocket.
She was initially booked into the Baxter County Detention Center on nonpayment of fines and failure to appear in court.
Campbell is reported to have refused to be interviewed by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office.
She bonded out two days after being jailed on the initial charges.
The sheriff’s office reported being contacted on April 18 by the owner of another storage facility located between Cotter and Gassville reporting that several units had been broken into.
When the vehicle Campbell and the male had been in was searched, additional items were found that belonged to the female whose insurance card and bank cards were discovered earlier.
The woman said the checkbook that had been found belonged to a man who had done work for her.
After being bonded out of jail on the initial charge, Campbell was seen loading items into a moving truck. A deputy spotted the truck on May 4 and took her into custody.
But Campbell was reportedly not finished running afoul of the law. Jail staff was tipped that she had allegedly brought drugs into the jail.
Campbell was taken out of her cell and a search was conducted during which contraband was found wrapped inside an undergarment. A plastic bag found inside the garment was alleged to have contained smaller bags containing several different pills, five small bags of a white crystal substance and one bag of white power.
According to the probable cause affidavit in the drug case, Campbell said the garment could not belong to her because she was not wearing a bra when arrested. Video showed Campbell and her cellmate draping a blanket over the bunk blocking the view of the camera and the second inmate could be seen removing her bra and passing it to Campbell. Investigators believe it was the bra in which the drugs were wrapped.
In all, there were nine controlled substances alleged to have been found in Campbell’s possession, including hydrocodone, buprenorphine transdermal patch, Clonazepam tablets, alprazolam pills, a broken alprazolam bar and a small quantity of marijuana.
As opposed to the first arrest in mid-April, Campbell has not bonded out on the subsequent arrest that took place May 4.
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