Woman arrested after mailing drug-laced letters to county jail
By SDCN Editor
East County, CA–An East County woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of mailing drug-laced letters to a county jail, authorities said.
According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, on four separate occasions between December 2022 and April 2023, deputies assigned to the Sheriff’s Mail Processing Center intercepted letters intended for an individual in a detention facility. They noticed the letters had the appearance of being soaked in an unknown liquid and dried.
Deputies tested the letters and determined they had been soaked in liquid methamphetamine. The letters were then seized as evidence, Sergeant Aaron Brown stated in the Sheriff’s Department’s news release.
The Sheriff’s Detention Investigations Unit began a criminal investigation and discovered that 33-year-old Katherine Smothers was responsible for mailing the letters containing methamphetamine to a county jail.
On April 27, detectives located and arrested Smothers in Santee. She was booked into the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility on several charges, including bringing drugs into a jail, trying to sell a controlled substance to an individual in custody, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
