Troy, Marine residents’ vacation lands them in Florida jail after child calls 9-1-1 for drug possession
By Charles Bolinger
Editor • According to ABC Channel 13 TV News in Franklin County Florida, sheriff’s deputies arrived at a rental property in the summer camp area on June 16 to find four people from southern Illinois and eastern Missouri in possession of cocaine, synthetic and natural marijuana, methamphetamine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Franklin County is southwest of Tallahassee and southeast of Panama City in the state’s panhandle. Deputies say they seized drug paraphernalia and a handgun.
One of the kids called 911 and reported the drug use.
Per www.franklinsheriff.com/arrest-log/, they arrested 43-year-old Suzanne Dannielle Bent of Troy; 40-year-old Ryan Edward Fetter of Troy; 43-year-old Tanner Warren Stephenson of Bismarck, Missouri; and 46-year-old Robert L. Fulkerson III of Marine.
Fulkerson is charged with the following:
Drug equipment possession and/or use; cruelty toward child; child abuse without great bodily harm; marijuana possession, less than 20 grams; cocaine possession; two charges of possession of a controlled substance; and actual construction/possession of a synthetic cannabinoid.
Stephenson was charged with marijuana possession less than 20 grams; drug equipment possession and/or use; and cruelty toward child; child abuse without great bodily harm
Fetter was charged with possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted US felon and cruelty toward child; child abuse without great bodily harm
Bent was charged with the following:
Marijuana possession, less than 20 grams; drug equipment possession and/or use; cruelty toward child; child abuse without great bodily harm; hallucinogen possession with intent to sell/manufacture/deliver, etc. Schedule II; hallucinogen distribution Schedule II; drug possession actual construction/possession of a synthetic cannabinoid; and cocaine possession.
“These adults that you see here were very open about what they had, obviously, or the kids wouldn’t have pictures. So, they were concerned. They were concerned for their own safety. And there was a 2-year-old and then the oldest was 16. There’s [sic] actually seven children,” Sheriff A.J. “Tony” Smith said.
Smith says he believes they had the intent to cook crack and potentially distribute.
“I don’t know how many days they had pleasure in it, they were just getting started. So I’m kind of…I am glad that we were able to get them early, get what drugs they had left, [the] firearm and get them locked up,” Smith said.
While the adults went to jail, Sheriff Smith says the kids were initially turned over to Florida’s Department of Children and Families.
“I know DCF had them all night. They took ’em back to Crawfordville and they had all the kids all night,” he said. Smith added that relatives arrived later to pick up the children and take them home. The four adults remain in the Franklin County Jail on bonds ranging from $14,500 to $4,500.
