Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

One Arrested In Stabbing; Suspected Drug Lab Is Bogus

One man is hospitalized and another is in jail because of a stabbing Saturday night in the Boughton area.

According to Nevada County Sheriff Steve Otwell, Courtney E. Jefferson, 27, of Prescott, was arrested and charged with second degree battery and resisting arrest in the case.

The victim was Quincey Simms, also of Prescott.

Simms told Otwell he had seen Jefferson walking toward him, but never considered he would be attacked.

Jefferson allegedly walked up and stabbed Simms in the chest. Simms was taken to Medical Park Hospital in Hope for treatment and observation.

Otwell said Jefferson resisted officers when they found him, and the officers were forced to use pepper spray to subdue the suspect.

NO EXPLOSION

Reports of a drug lab explosion near the Nevada-Columbia county line over the weekend are apparently false according to officials.

According to Otwell, a man living in the residence in question apparently slipped and cracked his head on the bathroom shower track.

A 9-1-1 call to the Columbia County Sheriff's Office was made, but by the time an officer arrived, the subject was unconscious.

A second man in the house was also passed out.

The deputy saw a large amount of blood on the floor, a bag of a white powdery substance on a coffee table and smelling chemicals and thought a drug lab was being run from the house.

He checked the kitchen finding a box with tubes, a hot plate and starter fluid.

The deputy called the CCSO, told what he had found and was informed the house was actually in Nevada County. He was ordered to call the NCSO with the incident.

By the time NCSO deputies arrived, the subject had been taken to the hospital by ambulance, and the other was in an apparent drunken stupor, Otwell said.

Because of the scene looking as it did, and no one around to give consent to search, Otwell had to get a search warrant before anything further could be done.

By the time the warrant was obtained, the subject had been brought back home with 13 staples closing the gap in his head.

He gave officers consent to search, telling them he had been making homemade beer. The law allows an individual to make 200 gallons of homemade beer a year.

Otwell said all officers found were ingredients used to make homemade beer.

The man, he said, was diabetic and the white powdery substance in the bag was a diabetic sugar, not crystal meth as was first thought.

"There was no explosion," Otwell said. "The man's daughter came home. He hadn't seen her for a long time and they had been drinking."