QUINCY, Ill. (AP) — A Missouri mother caught stuffing cocaine, heroin and marijuana into her 4-year-old son’s coat pocket during her Illinois arrest for shoplifting expected to get probation for the offense. But a judge wasn’t so forgiving about her parenting.
The Quincy Herald-Whig reports that 28-year-old Jennifer Shurtleff of Hannibal was been sentenced in Adams County to four years in prison.
Shurtleff pleaded guilty heroin possession, retail theft and child endangerment charges stemming from her December arrest at a Kmart in Quincy.
The county’s probation department recommended probation for Shurtleff. But Judge Scott Walden says he couldn’t go with that because she involved her son.
The judge said prison time could be a potential deterrent to parents “exposing children to the horrors of drugs.”
