Three Silver Springs residents found themselves behind bars on a litany of charges Thursday after a short high-speed pursuit.
A Marion County sheriff’s deputy spotted a gold Ford F-350 at the stop sign at the intersection of NE 170th Avenue and E Hwy. 40 and recognized the driver, 55-year-old George Odell Musselwhite, as a habitual traffic offender. The license plate on the truck also wasn’t registered to that vehicle, a sheriff’s office report states.
The deputy activated his overhead emergency lights and attempted a traffic stop on the vehicle in the 17900 block of E Hwy. 40. But Musselwhite continued heading east on Hwy. 40 and the deputy then activated his siren and initiated a pursuit, the report says.
The deputy reported seeing clear baggies being tossed out the windows of the truck during the pursuit. A sheriff’s lieutenant was then able to drive around the vehicle and force it to pull over, the report says.
Musselwhite and his two passengers, 48-year-old Kathy Lynn Slade and 35-year-old Jennifer Louise Griggs, were detained while deputies searched the truck. Numerous narcotics and drug paraphernalia were found inside the vehicle, the report says.
A white box containing a clear baggie with a crystal rock, a small pink container with a crystal-like substance inside, a glass pipe and a pink circle pill with the marking “K56” were located underneath the rear passenger seat where Slade had been sitting. All of the crystal-like substances field-tested positive for methamphetamine and the pill was identified as 10 mg of Oxycodone, a Schedule II controlled substance, the report says.
A black digital scale with a crystal-like substance on top of it was located on the front floorboard of the passenger seat where Griggs had been sitting. The residue field-tested positive for methamphetamine, the report says.
Deputies also found a crystal-like substance that tested positive for methamphetamine on the front driver’s and passenger seats and along both window seals. A detective also recovered one of the clear baggies that had been thrown from the vehicle and the crystal-like substance inside it also tested positive for methamphetamine, the report says.
Musselwhite, Slade and Griggs were all placed under arrest and transported to the Marion County Jail. Musselwhite was charged with driving while license suspended (habitual offender), possession of methamphetamine, fleeing/eluding a law enforcement officer with lights and siren active, possession of drug equipment, failing to register a motor vehicle and tampering with or destroying evidence. He also was charged with violating bond conditions on prior charges of battery and domestic battery by strangulation. He was being held on $13,000 bond on the new charges and no bond on the prior charges and is due in court Feb. 18.
Slade was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and possession of drug equipment. She was being held on $5,000 bond and is due in court Feb. 18 at 9 a.m.
Griggs was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug equipment and tampering with or destroying evidence. She is being held on no bond and also is due in court Feb. 18 at 9 a.m.
Neither Musselwhite nor Slade are strangers to the Marion County legal system. Musselwhite has been held in the jail nine times since May 2010 on a litany of charges, including an arrest on Dec. 26 for simple domestic battery after he allegedly punched a woman who he thought had taken all of his “dope.” Slade has been in the jail five times since September 2016 on multiple drug-related charges and failure to attend a pretrial conference on a charge of driving with license suspended, revoked or canceled, records show.