Man sentenced to 5 years in prison for drug case

During the March 6 session of Ozark County Law Day, Christopher Campbell pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance in a plea agreement with the state. He was sentenced to 5 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections in each case with the sentences to run concurrently, or at the same time. 

The online docket says that Campbell chose to accept the punishment as “straight time” in prison rather than a one-year drug treatment program.

According to the probable cause statement filed by Ozark County Deputy Josh Sherman, at 1:35 p.m. July 22, 2023, the officer was running stationary radar and observing traffic heading south on Highway 5 north near County Road 117. While on patrol, Sherman witnessed a vehicle parked on the left-hand side of the roadway near a field, fence and gate. 

Sherman said he observed the driver, later identified as Carrie Laird, throw a small white object over the fenced gate and into the field a short distance beyond the gate. Sherman approached the vehicle and Laird and noticed that Christopher Campbell, a prior contact for Sherman, was at the back of the vehicle. 

A post on the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department’s Facebook page about the incident says that Campbell was on his way home from recent incarceration at the Missouri Department of Corrections and was still in his prison-issued sandals at the time of the incident. 

Sherman asked Laird what she threw over the fence, and “she said it was a shiny rock that meant nothing to her and that she needed to utilize the bathroom, which is why she was outside of the vehicle on my approach,” Sherman wrote in his report. “I opened the gate and walked approximately 10 yard to the object…[and found] a white glass pipe with a   white-crystal-like substance within the item.”

“...From my training and experience, I recognized this substance as methamphetamine.”

The item field-tested positive for methamphetamine, the report says. 

When Sherman asked who owned or was using the pipe, both Laird and Campbell denied possession of the item. He told them that because they both denied that the pipe was theirs, he would arrest them both with possession and would let the court sort it out further. 

The sheriff’s Facebook post also indicated that OCSD K9 Karo was deployed and indicated that there was a controlled substance inside the car.