Q&A: BOONE COUPLE SHARES METH ARREST STORY

Editor's note: This is the second of three installments of an interview
with Cathy and Gary, a married couple from Boone who are recovering meth
addicts. Today, they talk about their arrest and its effect. Cathy is 48
and Gary is 44. Together they are raising two girls, ages 16 and 18. They
have asked that their last name not be used at the request of their employers.

When did you get caught by police for using meth?

Cathy: Sept. 26, 2000, the cops walked in. I understand some things, but
sometimes I don't. The cops were kind of crude. I know we are doing illegal
things, but they didn't need to be crude to my daughter. They told her I
was going away for 25 years. She was hysterical. They had no right to do
that. I know I was wrong. They had her scared to death.

How did you get caught?

Cathy: Two confidential informants who told them (police) I would never
sell it to them, but I would do all they wanted to do. I know for a fact
there is no honor among thieves anymore.

What was the worst part about being arrested?

Cathy: Getting busted in front of my children.

Gary: That was definitely the most degrading.

Cathy: Then my mother is sitting there wondering if her house is going to
be confiscated and taken because we had drugs in it.

What eventually happened to you?

Cathy: They put me on probation.

Gary: I went to prison. I was there for three years.

Why did you get probation and your husband went to prison?

Cathy: I was never out there cooking it with them. When Gary and my friend
did, I was in town with the kids. We kept the kids away from it. They did
it out in the country.

And they wanted us to roll on people, and we couldn't. We weren't doing it
with anybody and we weren't selling it to anybody. I truthfully think they
threw the book at my husband and my friend because we couldn't give them
anything. These people who can give them names are out walking the streets.
That gets me. It is not fair and it is not right.

When did you start making your own meth?

Cathy: When I met Gary. We didn't start out making it until we had been
together. We were basically selling it to get our own. We weren't as greedy
as other people. We didn't care about selling it.

What would it take to buy all the ingredients to make meth?

Cathy: It would take a lot of people in cahoots together. They are
monitoring it so much now. The other thing that wasn't so easy to get
anymore was anhydrous. I was getting tired of trying to figure out where we
were going to get the next batch. And to buy it was ungodly. You would
either have to give up part of what you were making for them to be happy,
or $300 to $400.

What was going through your mind when you were arrested?

Gary: We had the chance of losing everything, going to prison, losing your
girls, losing your mom's house. Our whole life, if there was a chalkboard,
this would have erased everything.

Cathy: Any my children, it really hit me hard: is it worth it? Out in that
world there are a lot of people who don't come to that conclusion.

Did you want to quit before you got caught?

Cathy: I had been saying for quite a few times before that we had to stop
this. We were getting too old for this. It was going to kill us.