COLBERT COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) – A Colbert County man was indicted by a Grand Jury earlier this month for trafficking meth and child endangerment charges.
Authorities with the Colbert County Drug Task Force, in collaboration with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), said two homes were raided on September 29, 2022, resulting in the arrest of 27-year-old Ronald Yarbrough after a brief police chase.
Police said at the time that Yarbrough threw out a significant amount of methamphetamine from his car during the chase. Officials were eventually able to stop him, and that’s when they discovered Yarbrough’s 4-year-old child in the car.
“He started throwing meth [and] ice out of the window,” Drug Task Force Director Curtis Burns said, “and of course, we didn’t know until he finally stopped that his 4-year-old son was in the vehicle with him.”
Yarbrough was indicted on five counts, which include:
- trafficking methamphetamine
- chemical endangerment of a child
- reckless endangerment
- attempt to elude
- tampering with physical evidence
The indictment shows that Yarbrough did ‘knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally cause or permit a child to be exposed to, ingest or inhale, or to have contact with” a controlled substance by having his 4-year-old in the vehicle with methamphetamine. It also states he “recklessly engaged in conduct which created substantial risk.”
Burns told News 19 back in Sept. that Yarbrough was going to be facing multiple charges in connection with trafficking methamphetamine and endangering the child. Burns said they had no idea the child was there, and they likely would have approached the situation differently if they had known.
“DHR was contacted,” Burns said. “Later that same evening, the child was released to a family member.”
Yarbrough is set for an arraignment hearing on April 27.
