Local woman wrestles with meth habit

Two-year suspended sentence revoked

A former Columbia Falls woman was recently sentenced to three years with the Montana Department of Corrections after her drug possession sentence was revoked.

Holly Dull, 33, was initially charged with one felony count of drug possession and one misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia after she and Jessica Albrecht were arrested in Columbia Falls on March 11, 2006.

According to former Columbia Falls Police Officer Jason Acheson, when he approached a red Ford Explorer parked near the Old Red Bridge, a passenger who turned out to be Dull emerged from the vehicle and began taking her clothes off. Acheson ordered her to stop, but her behavior was "unpredictable," Acheson reported.

Albrecht emerged shortly afterwards, and Acheson and former Columbia Fall Police Det. Brandy Arnoux reported seeing drug paraphernalia through the vehicle's open door. At that point, Acheson reported, the two women went from calm to screaming, and both had dilated pupils.

After a search warrant was executed, the officers allegedly found a used syringe, a bag of 1 cc syringes, several pipes, 102 jewel bags inside a Ziplock bag, a jewel bag with residue and other drug-related materials. Residue on two items later tested positive for methamphetamine.

Back at the police station, Albrecht allegedly admitted she and Dull were in the process of injecting meth when the officers arrived. Dull allegedly admitted she had been using meth for several years, about a gram per week.

Dull was released to formal house arrest about 7 1/2 months later, with the Moonlight Detective Agency monitoring her. But according to a May 1, 2007 report by the detective agency's owner, Ike Eisentraut, Dull was not following the rules.

At one point, Eisentraut said, Dull was living in Kalispell with a boyfriend and two women who took care of Dull's two-year-old daughter, but Dull moved around without informing him and didn't answer phone calls. If Dull had been caught with drugs, she would have been immediately violated, Eisentraut noted.

Eisentraut followed up with a June 18 letter stating Dull was $225 behind in payments to the detective agency and that her voice sounded slurred and unintelligible over the phone. He noted that in all his years, he had only violated four people, but he was clearly frustrated by Dull.

"Every once in a while, there is going to be one like Holly Dull that could care less about the rules," Eisentraut said. "They are not candidates for house arrest."

Saying he had spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Police Department and was a stockade guard commander in the Army, Eisentraut said he had concerns about the formal house arrest program.

"I recently had to turn down a request from news media to do an interview on house arrest because I did not want to do one in which I would have to expose the pitfalls," he said. "And I'm sure not going to lie about it."

His solution: "Either violate them or release them from house arrest," he said, but "don't make us responsible for their actions."

On Sept. 6, 2007, Flathead County District Court Judge Stewart Stadler sentenced Dull to five years with two years suspended for the felony possession charge. There were numerous conditions focused on drug rehabilitation, and Dull was released from a Billings pre-release center for the balance of her sentence on July 7, 2009.

Dull made some progress after that, her probation officer reported, but she had an alcohol relapse in May 2010 and was "prone to drama and avoidance" during counseling. The probation officer said Dull needed long-term chemical dependency treatment.

This past year, things got worse. Dull failed to report at all in June and July, failed to tell her probation officer where she was living, and allegedly tested positive for marijuana on Aug. 17. Dull also allegedly admitted to using meth on Aug. 15.

On Oct. 27, Stadler revoked Dull's suspended sentence and re-sentenced her to three years with the Department of Corrections. He recommended her for appropriate treatment but gave her no credit for time spent under probation.