CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A Chillicothe woman was found guilty by a jury of her peers on Tuesday of crashing her car while high on pills.
Kayla Mullins, 37, of Sugar Street, was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired and drug paraphernalia in June after she was found passed out behind the wheel of a crashed car. Officer Traevon Williams with Chillicothe Police Department testified that he was dispatched to the crash near South Watt and East Fourth streets. Williams said Mullins appeared to be suffering from an overdose and was incoherent; medics administered two doses of NARCAN before Mullins started to come around, according to testimony from a paramedic.
Williams testified that he searched Mullins’ purse and found what he labeled as drug paraphernalia, including a pill crusher, a straw with white residue, and a bottle of pills with the name of her father on them. Mullins’ defense attorney, Christian Malone argued that she admitted to taking an illegal pill that was not prescribed to her: a Percocet, but stopped short of saying if that is what caused her to crash. In fact, Malone posed no reasoning for the crash. Instead, Mullins’ attorney tried to explain away the pill crusher by saying it was used for “other pills” that were not illegal, and that Mullins had issue swallowing pills. Her father was put on the stand by the defense to support the claim that Mullins had issues swallowing regular pills since she was a child, and that is why she had a pill crusher with her. The defense did not give a reasoning why Mullins had a straw with residue, which is typically used to snort drugs.
The state prosecutor, Aaron McHenry put forth a case that painted Mullins as a pill addict, who frequently abused drugs, while the defense attacked Williams’ arrest. In the effort of the defense, the officer was drilled about forwarding a form to the state BMV suspending Mullins’ license for allegedly failing to take a urine test at the jail after her arrest. Malone said that the woman did, in fact, urinate for Williams, but that it was not enough to produce results. Williams rebutted by saying that he informed Mullins that if she did not supply more urine for the sample to produce results that the suspension would take place.
The jury was made up of five men and three women, all of whom were significantly older than Mullins. The majority of jurors appeared to be in their 50s-and-60s, mostly blue collar middle class workers. It took them 22 minutes to find Mullins guilty of both charges.
Mullins teared up when she was sentenced by Judge Toni L. Eddy to fines totaling $425, two years probation, and three days in jail; she has to report to jail on May 10. She was also sentenced to a 72 hour driving program and had her license suspended for two years.
