CEDAR CITY —   Reports of suspicious sounds coming from a neighborhood home involving a vacuum and a crying baby led Cedar City Police to arrest a man who has since been charged three separate times for related and unrelated crimes. 

Meth and toddlers; Cedar City Police Respond

When officers from the Cedar City Police Department responded to the home in question they found “very suspicious circumstances,” according to a probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest of 30-year-old Troy Dwaine Hoover on Nov. 10.

Two adults, whom officers believed to be high on methamphetamine, were attending to two small children, according to the statement. Both meth and paraphernalia were found in the presence of the children, the statement said, and one of the children was found to have “very suspicious” bruises all over their body.

“Officers found evidence and testimony to support that (Hoover) had used a vacuum cleaner to cover the child’s mouth to try to get him to stop crying,” Cedar City Police Public Information Officer Jimmy Roden said. “There was also evidence that he had slapped the kid.”

Roden described the child as “toddler age.”

Hoover was arrested on the scene and booked into the Iron County Jail on possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), a class A misdemeanor, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor.

While in custody, according to the probable cause statement, Hoover admitted to police that the glass pipe that was found was used by him earlier in the day to smoke meth.

The Department of Child and Family Services was contacted, Roden said, and an investigation was launched into the child abuse allegations.

“(Officers) completed the investigation the following day on the child abuse,” he said. “There was a lot that went into it.”

Hoover was booked two times in relation to this one incident – once on Nov. 11 for the drug charges, and once on Nov. 13 for child abuse charges after the investigation came to a close. Each booking is considered a separate arrest, jail officials said, even though the inmate was already in custody at the time of the additional charge.

On Nov. 16, the Iron County Attorney’s Office backed up the additional charges by filing an amended information in its case against Hoover, adding charges of child abuse, a second-degree felony, and child endangerment, a third-degree felony.

Uncanny timing – Drug Task Force investigation comes to a close

At the same time Hoover was taken into custody by Cedar City Police, the Beaver/Iron/Garfield Drug Task Force was in the process of requesting the Iron County Attorney’s Office obtain a warrant for his arrest arising from a different alleged crime on Oct. 28 in Cedar City.

When Hoover was booked into custody Nov. 11, Evans said, the task force was alerted and withdrew its request for a warrant; instead they had him arrested Nov. 12 from inside the jail and charged with  possession of a forged writing device, a third-degree felony.

On Oct. 28, pharmacist Robbie Vickers at Bulloch Drug in Cedar City contacted the task force alleging that a man and a woman had attempted to fill what he believed was an unauthorized oxycodone prescription, Task Force Commander David Evans said.

Vickers informed Hoover and his companion that he would not be filling the prescription until he could call the doctor’s office and verify its authenticity, Evans said. It was after normal operating hours for the physician.

“They tried to get it back,” Evans said of the prescription script, explaining that often a person who has been turned away at one pharmacy will try to take it to another pharmacy. In this case, the pharmacist refused to return the script to the twosome.

The following day, according to the probable cause statement, the Bulloch Drug pharmacist called the Beaver-Milford-Parowan Medical Clinic where the prescription had allegedly originated and learned from the doctor whose name had been affixed that the script had been forged. The doctor also provided a written statement to Task Force Officer Cole Douglas confirming the fraudulent signature.

Following a short investigation, Brittany Christine Williams, 31, of Cedar City, (booking photo unavailable) was arrested by the task force Nov. 4, according to a probable cause statement filed in support of her arrest for the Oct. 28 offense. Williams was charged with third-degree felony possession of a forged prescription and class B misdemeanor retail theft.

According to a probable cause statement, Williams told task force agents she had found the script in a trailer in Beaver County and didn’t know who it belonged to.

“She stated that she and Mr. Hoover decided to try to pass the prescription so they could get drug money,” the probable cause report said. “Ms. Williams admitted that she was high on heroin at the time she attempted to pass the prescription.”

Generally speaking, Evans said, prescription forgeries in relation to opiates happen more often than one might believe.

As a whole, the nation is facing an enormous prescription drug problem, he said, and that does not exclude tiny towns like Cedar City.

“I don’t have any crime data to tell you how often or how many times a month we investigate prescription drug cases,” Evans said, “but it’s often.”

As of 2:45 p.m. Monday, Hoover was still in jail with $20,000 bail, cash or bond, required for his release  Williams was released on $5,000 bail Nov. 16.

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