RICHLAND CO. – A rural Olney man has been hemmed up on a meth charge after his wife finally refused to cover for him.
Jim D. Runyon, 51, of North Higginswitch Road where he operates Runyon Metals, was charged on May 4 with a single Class 3 felony count of Possession of Meth less than 5 grams, the incident of which dates back to April 15.
It so happens that that was the date that Runyon was accused by his wife, Tamra, of having a meth-and-booze-fueled outburst that prompted her to file an Order of Protection, which, unlike criminal complaints, contain a narrative that tells how certain incidents and arrests come about.
Mrs. Runyon said in an April 18 complaint that on Sunday, April 15, her hubby woke up “sick.”
When she asked what was wrong, he told her he was tired, but she clarified in the narrative that he was “coming down from a 4- to 5-day meth binge” and said “he wanted to sleep all day – ‘I could sleep all week,’” she reported that he said.
She said he poured a tequila and orange juice and was “very angry,” and “started to smoke meth around noon.
“He started screaming, calling me manipulative, a liar and a thief,” she wrote. “He gets in my face about two inches from my face and screams profanities. He calls me a c^nt, whore, thief and is always very angry.”
She stated that at 1:46 p.m., she took a photo with her cell phone of her husband “smoking meth out of a glass pipe. He did not know I took the picture. I took the picture to the sheriff’s department and made a statement. The sheriff’s department came to my home and raided my home.”
Mrs. Runyon said that her husband and her niece (convicted felon out of Lawrence County, Andrea Armour; regular readers will recall that Armour and her husband Jarrad were the two punks who inadvertently left their infant in a baby carrier outside of Walmart in Lawrenceville in early 2014 in a meth haze) were in the home when law enforcement arrived and the two refused to open the door…resulting in the officers having to “tear down” her back door and “empty” her home.
Meth was allegedly found, and Runyon was arrested.
Mrs. Runyon further outlined what Mr. Runyon had allegedly been doing to her in past months, including giving more background on what had happened that April 15 event:
“During the argument on Sunday,” she wrote in her petition for OP, “I had a pair of jeans in my hand. Jim grabbed the jeans and put them to my neck. He was hurting me. I was so scared. He has hurt be before and is verbally abusive daily. I do believe that my life is in danger and he could and would kill me.”
She added that during the previous week, her hubby had bullied her into giving him money.
“He said he needed $4,000 to pay his metal bill,” she wrote. “I wrote a check for that amount. He said it was a loan. Then he told me I owed him $4,000.”
Another incident she outlined that occurred just two days before his arrest involved $2,000, for which she made him sign a promissory note.
“I have called the law 3 to 4 times in the past four years of marriage,” she wrote. “I always get scared when they arrived and told the cops I was okay. I was too afraid to tell them he was violent and hurt me. Jim’s violence has increased since the passing of his father, Larry Runyon. He says meth is his Rx for coping. The meth use has increased or started again after Larry’s death. I too have lost my father, sister (14 days later), nephew and father-in-law which I deeply loved. But, I do not do illicit drugs to cope.”
She wrote that her husband was bailed out the day before she filed the OP, with Armour “helping with that process,” she noted at the end.
She received her OP, which was subsequently dismissed on May 1 when it came up for a plenary hearing, presumably because of a no-contact order imposed upon Runyon on his bond conditions.
Runyon is a meth felon, having been placed on probation in March of 2014 for 30 months after a November of 2011 charge; he also has a history of violence and substance abuse dating back to the 90s, the bulk of which was handled by former prosecutor David Hyde, who was easy on meth felons and pretty much everybody else.
Fortunately for Mrs. Runyon and the rest of Richland County, current prosecutor Brad Vaughn is not so “easy” on crims of any flavor.
Runyon is scheduled for a first appearance in his meth case on May 22.