Couple Uses Child to Smuggle Pill into the Jail

A prisoner at the DeKalb County Jail and his wife have been charged with having contraband in a penal institution and child abuse and neglect after trying to use their eight year old child to smuggle a pill into the jail.
24 year old Justin Dale Estes and 30 year old Ashley Nicole Estes of Wade Street, Smithville are each under a $20,000 bond and will be in court December 11.
Sheriff Patrick Ray said that on Thursday, November 6 Justin Estes, serving a sentence in the DeKalb County Jail, was visited by his wife Ashley Estes and their children. Before the visitation, a Sheriff’s Department Detective found a pill in the coat pocket of the Estes’ eight year old daughter and learned that it was placed in the coat by Mrs. Estes. According to Sheriff Ray, Justin Estes admitted that he had told his wife to put a pill in the child’s coat pocket. The pill was believed to be an eight milligram suboxone. If ingested, Sheriff Ray said the pill could have caused the child to suffer serious sickness or death. Mrs. Estes told the detective that she had previously brought drugs into the jail for her husband on different occasions by putting them in the clothing of her children, according to Sheriff Ray.