Press release
Henderson County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse and his deputies raided two homes late Thursday night and early Friday morning, arresting eight people who were charged with felony distribution and possession of suspected methamphetamines.
“This marks the biggest sweep to date of the folks dealing and using illegal drugs here under my watch,” Hillhouse said. “This team of dedicated professional Investigators and Deputies worked hard to put these people behind bars.”
The eight — five women, three men ranged from age 69 to 34 and included a married couple – were arrested in the Payne Springs area. One raid occurred in the Golden Oaks subdivision and the other in the Southwood Shores subdivision.
Suspects arrested were William Nall, 69, Terry Sloan, 59, Carol Kretzmeier, 56, Clovis Dyess, 62, Kristina Dyess, 51, Jason Duncan, 43, Taffina Voyles, 42, and Victoria Lambert, 34.
Duncan was charged with a first degree felony for manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance, a first degree felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Nall faces a second degree felony for manufacturing and delivery of a controlled substance, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The other six suspects each face a state jail felony possession charges, punishable by 180 days up to 2 years in State Jail and a $10,000 fine.
“The deputies working in Henderson County are setting the bar high,” Hillhouse said. “They work 24/7 busting these folks and I am proud that they are taking this battle against illegal drugs right to the criminals.”
This marks the fourth in a series of raids and arrests of those with illegal drugs since Hillhouse took office this month.
To date, 13 suspects have been put in jail and face various felony drug related charges.
“I promised a crack-down on illegal drugs and that is what we are delivering,” Hillhouse said. “Criminals will know that illegal drugs in any amount, large or small, will not be tolerated under my watch.”
Hillhouse obtained the search warrant for the first raid, netting five suspects.
Narcotics Investigator Brad Beddingfield obtained information for the second warrant netting three suspects.
Both warrants were signed by Judge Dan Moore of the 173rd District Court.
Major Bryan Tower, Lt. David Faught, Investigators Josh Rickman, Brad Gray, Jeromey Rose, Jessica Halbert, Sgt. Daniel Wright, Deputy Linus Moulton, and Deputy Brian Huckabee conducted the raids with Hillhouse and Beddingfield.
“These raids were done at or after midnight,” Hillhouse said. “Our team worked previous days and the day of the arrests gathering information, conducted the raid in the dead of night and were at the office when the sun came up the next morning,” Hillhouse said. “The citizens of this County can be proud, as I am, of these fine men and women.
Grateful for the work being done in Henderson Co that will benefit the entire community.
We and many of the home owners here in Southwood Shores appreciate your efforts and arrests! We love our community and are trying hard to make it safe for all. Thank you to the Payne Springs Police Dept. for their frequent drives around the neighborhood. We will be even more diligence in our neighborhood watch!
Impressive–the number of people our sheriff has “rescued” from the horrible existence of drug addiction. These arrests are necessary in order to protect citizens and their property, of course. I have never had a liking for the type of drugs these people are being arrested over, but I started young and covered lots of territory. Truth is, I still have a couple of functioning brain cells. At the expense of tax paying citizens I was able to get a college education while yet in prison . Then in 2009 I went back to prison with stage Iv squamous cell carcinoma in my neck, head, and throat. The treatment to cure me was certainly into the hundred thousands of dollars. I am sure that–individually– many people are not thrilled that a man in prison for not playing by the rules could get the education I did, or the cancer treatment I got. As there are parents who want to see to their children get a good education, and some have Family and friends with cancer who will not get the level of care that I got in prison. Point being, I have always had a pretty slow working conscience, but it has finally hit me as to what an ingrate I have been. I have had excellent opportunities in life that many people never get. Yet, these are the ones paying the bills and spending whatever is necessary to keep our cities safe…and to treat even criminals such as I was, with dignity and respect. And when a varmint like me gets jailed, they have never tortured me, or tried to shut me off from the few wholesome things still coming my way. On one occasion I committed a criminal offense while in prison, and spent almost two years in a five by nine foot cage. In that cage, I was given books to read and had a radio to stay in tune with the outside world. By comparison, my two older brothers also had substance abuse problems but weren’t stupid enough to do the things I did that kept me in prison for 31 years and 2 months. One died at age 49 with heart failure after a “master-blaster” of methamphetamine. One year and one day after the death of my eldest brother, my 47 year old brother died as a direct result of alcoholism. Had some old sheriff up in Fort Worth not “rescued” me, chances are I would not have lived long enough to develop cancer. ..much less to have a society of people I had not treated very well step in and take care of me. Just stating a case. I am not a preacher, nothing such as that. But I am not altogether stupid, either. I KNOW, beyond doubt, that should I return to Henderson County and take up using illicit drugs, there is a Sheriff’s Department and police force of men and women who would be happy to “rescue” me by placing me in a secure room with burglar bars on the windows where I would be safe to lie and meditate peacefully. I believe that our perspective, ironically, determines the direction our lives will take. May sound silly to some of you, but in my case, going to prison turned out not to be the worst thing that has happened to me. I will hope that some of you men and women in jail will read this and realize that I am not just being cute in saying these things. If any of you are feeling anything like I was feeling when first arrested on my last felony beef, then a change of perspective can be a good thing. For instance, you now have an opportunity to catch-up on your reading. It is a sure thing that you will be feeling better after a hot shower, clean clothes , a few regular meals. You might guess that I have known a lot of police men and women, and prison guards over the past forty some-odd years. I got into the habit of grouping them in various categories. Like the ones who would turn a blind eye to obvious violations of the rules were, in my opinion, the best ‘kind’. As time wore on and the full story of emerged, I wound up adopting the perspective that G. Gordon Liddy came up with while serving time in a federal penitentiary. Which is that a ‘dirty cop’ was the lowest form of the species. You can’t trust them, and their brothers in gray uniforms could not trust them. To the people in Henderson County who made the choice to profit off other peoples misery by manufacturing and distributing inferior illicit drugs, I believe there may be a valuable lesson to learn. If you do not cease to operate in this manner, I believe you can count on some stormy weather in months and years to come. I probably did more drugs and drank more alcohol inside the prison since 1976 than most of you have done on this side of the fence in your entire lives. For many years, as the saying goes, I had sold my soul for a jelly roll. I wasted a lot of time that could have been better spent on this side of the fence. Both of my parents died while I was in prison. My only child grew up and by the time I met him from having last seen him at 11 months old, he was in his first semester of his freshman year at U.T. Arlington. A friend a couple of years ago contacted my great niece for me. This woman told her that I had gone away 30 years ago and no one knew me. (That was one of my things after I caught a double-digit sentence). I was NOT, under any circumstances, going to call my family and whine to them that their drug-addicted criminal black sheep was in trouble and needed his mama. I would NEVER have worried my parents over the things I had gotten myself into. They had not robbed anyone, and did not deserve to suffer me and the dark path I followed. Frankly, I have never in my life rooted for the cops in taking crazies off the streets and putting them away behind a fence–far-far away form the citizenry of our nation. Having been a suffering victim of mental illness and a slave to psycho-active chemicals, I finally began to understand what, exactly, these subcultures of drug user were coming to represent. What type of message our young children are getting when daddy goes away from the time between the first and the fifth grade. Families ripped apart. I turn on a TV and see the lifestyle the hip, slick, cool people are modeling. And the beautiful women behind a sparkling glass of champagne while the guy with the nine lying on the table beside the mound of white powder being measured out with the swipe of a razor blade for consumption. What they never show are the women blowing it back out of their nose in the parking lot, or the mother when she walks out of the courthouse with a baby on her hip after seeing the daddy cop for a twenty to keep from getting the full clock over a $20 drug sale to an undercover cop. I am perhaps the luckiest man alive. Since the blinders have fallen off, I can see what is happening, and have the sense to know what it means.