A couple who admitted cooking, keeping and selling crystal methamphetamine in their Cherry Street home with their two young daughters sleeping and playing nearby will spend the next 10 days awaiting their sentences.

Charles Dudley White, 27, and Bethany Ann White, 25, avoided a jury trial when they pleaded guilty Monday before Warren County Circuit Court Judge M. James Chaney to possession of precursor substances, possession of methamphetamine and child endangerment.

They will be sentenced July 24.

“If there are children involved when people are using or creating drugs, the position of the district attorney’s office is to take a hard line,” said Warren County District Attorney Ricky Smith.

The Whites each face a maximum sentence of 48 years in prison for the offenses, though the presence of a number of rifles along with the drugs could have brought the sentences up to 86 years, Smith said. Dismissing the gun enhancement part of the charges against the Whites was the only concession Smith said he was willing to make for the guilty plea.

A pool of potential jurors had assembled Monday morning in the second-floor circuit courtroom. At 10:20, as they waited for the start of the jury selection process, Chaney entered the courtroom and dismissed them.

“The defendants have changed their minds,” Chaney told the jury pool. “There was no last-minute plea-bargain package. They have pleaded guilty with no guarantee of any particular sentence.”

Charles and Bethany White were arrested Oct. 21 after a months-long investigation by the Warren County Sheriff’s Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. Officers executing a search warrant at 2409 Cherry St. found evidence that at least 23 batches of the explosive drug had been manufactured in an area near where the children played, as well as pieces of the drug and various acids and other chemicals used in its making.

“Investigators found crystal methamphetamine in several different places,” Smith said. “It was in plain view on a plate. All the precursor chemicals and the drugs were found in close proximity to where the children were playing.”

After that arrest, Charles and Bethany White were released from jail, each on $250,000 bond. Bethany White was later taken back to the Warren County Jail when bondsmen revoked her bond due to misdemeanor city charges, and Charles White was arrested again in March for possession of precursor chemicals.

They were in the Warren County Jail Monday, and will remain there awaiting sentencing.

The children, now 2 and nearly 5, were initially placed with a family member, Smith said. A later placement hearing was held by the Mississippi Department of Human Services to decide on their care. Youth Court decisions are confidential.

Chaney ordered a sentencing report which will be completed by the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Among their considerations will be specific details of the crime, the defendants’ prior criminal history, if any, and letters of support or outrage from the community, Smith said.

*

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com