A Northeast Georgia couple was arrested this week in Cherokee County, N.C., on drug charges and charges linked to a fight with deputies during their arrest that left the officers with what were described as serious injuries.
Brian Matthew Bailey, 39, of Mineral Bluff, Ga., and 32-year-old Cynthia Lynn Smith, of Blue Ridge, Ga., are charged. Bailey was charged with three counts of assault on a law enforcement officer inflicted serious injury, possession of methamphetamine, possession of heroin, possession of drug paraphernalia, maintaining a place-vehicle for the use and consumption of a controlled substance and resisting an officer. Smith was charged with fleeing arrest with a motor vehicle, possession of methamphetamine, possession of heroin, maintaining a place for use of controlled substances, and possession of drug paraphernalia, Cherokee County Sheriff Derrick Palmer in a statement on the arrests.
The charges stem from an Aug. 14 investigation into illegal possession and sale of drugs in Culberson, an unincorporated community a few miles southwest of Murphy on the North Carolina-Georgia line, Palmer said.
During the investigation, a detective saw a vehicle driven in a suspicious manner that eventually make an “unsafe movement and also violated other traffic laws,” the sheriff said.
The detective attempted to stop the vehicle but it fled at a high rate of speed, triggering a chase.
