Several locals found an unconventional way to beat the heat this week — cooling their heels.
The Floyd County Sheriff’s Office staged a roundup of suspected drug offenders Thursday. Sheriff’s deputies rounded up three suspects that morning, but had several more stops to make before they completed their drug roundup.
William Collier, 65, and Norma Collier, 42, both of Georges Branch, were arrested on charges of first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance. Sheriffs report the couple were trafficking in hydrocodone and oxycodone.
Sheriffs deputies had visited the same address on Georges Branch in January, finding more than 14 people living in the home when they arrived to execute a warrant for Eugene Arms. Arms was arrested on a single count of first-degree drug trafficking.
Thursday was a similar in that over a dozen people were found in the home when the Colliers were arrested. A third individual, William McCoy, was also arrested at the residence for failure to pay fines in Lawerence county.
Deputies also exercised a warrant in Auxier, arresting James Edward Lafferty on a charge of first degree trafficking in heroin.
Sheriff John K Blackburn said his office had plans to arrest 20 people on Thursday.
“It’s killing people, and we’re trying to slow it down, to stop it,” Blackburn said of his department’s fight against drugs. Blackburn said his office had undercover officers who had been making buys around the county.
According to Blackburn, many of the arrests were connected to pill mill pipelines coming in from Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.












