Mismatched ball hitch leads to meth, stolen tractor arrest

A routine traffic stop last Sunday afternoon resulted in the recovery of numerous stolen items —including a tractor — and the discovery of a suspected methamphetamine lab.
Lawrenceburg Police officer Jeremy Cornish said he was patrolling US 127 Bypass near Highway 151 when a piece of tin flew off a trailer in front of him and nearly struck his vehicle.
Cornish said when he pulled the vehicle over and it didn’t take long to figure out something was amiss. He said the vehicle was towing a trailer that contained a variety of items, including an old Allis-Chalmers tractor.
“The ball hitch on the vehicle was the wrong size,” Cornish said. “Besides that, it was being held together with a bungee cord.”
Cornish said when approached the vehicle he “smelled a heavy chemical odor” and ordered the three people in the vehicle out.
He said a woman in the vehicle repeatedly tried to stick her hands in the purse she was carrying despite being told to keep her hands where he and officer Josh Satterly could see them.
Cornish said there was a reason for that.
“She kept trying to grab a black pouch in her purse. When we opened the pouch, it contained two plastic baggies of a white substance, which she stated was methamphetamine, along with a set of digital scales,” Cornish said in his report.
That was just the beginning of the trouble the woman, Carole L. Anderson, 42, of 546 Cornishville St., Harrodsburg found herself in that day.
Along with the methamphetamine, officers quickly learned that the tractor, the trailer being used to haul it and a large amount of items in her garage were stolen property, and that Anderson also had a meth lab.
“We ended up in Harrodsburg and recovered a sorts of stolen items, along with a meth lab in the garage. It probably helped solve at least 10 burglaries down there,” he said.
Anderson was charged with trafficking heroin, possession of drug paraphernalia and receiving stolen property, according to police reports.
Also charged in the incident was Louis Anderson, 49 of 502 Cornishville St., Harrodsburg, who was cited for contents escaping from a vehicle, according to police reports.
Cornish said a total of three people were in the vehicle and that none of them had a valid driver’s license.
 

Photo furnished

A tractor and trailer police say were stolen is shown following a traffic stop Sunday on US 127 Bypass that lead to the discovery of suspected meth lab in Harrodsburg.