A Brown County woman has been charged with driving while intoxicated, criminal recklessness and unlawful possession of a syringe almost a year after a traffic stop on Gatesville Road.

Former Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy Joe Jackson stopped Alexandria J. Parker, 25, on July 30, 2017, after Sheriff Scott Southerland had reported her as a possible intoxicated driver.

Southerland said when he passed the vehicle in the 90-degree turn north of Bear Wallow Road, the driver’s chin was tucked down and her eyes looked closed. He turned around and caught up with the vehicle, which was sitting in the middle of the road at the corner of Gatesville and Bear Wallow roads.

Parker, the driver, looked as if she was asleep. Southerland sat behind her vehicle for about one minute, then Parker took off west on Gatesville Road, the report said.

Southerland saw Parker run two vehicles off the road, and nearly drove off the road herself in a hillcrest curve, he said. The sheriff waited until she was on a straight stretch of road before initiating a traffic stop. Parker stopped in the middle of the road, and a car driving east had to stop, too, because her vehicle was blocking the road, the report said.

When he approached the driver’s side, Parker appeared to be slumped over and her eyes were half open, the sheriff said. When Jackson asked her for her registration, she slowly fumbled through a pile of papers in her hands, he wrote.

Parker told police she was going to go pick up her child in Bloomington. She initially denied being under the influence of anything. When Jackson told her he knew she was on something and that she could have killed someone driving like that, she began to cry, the report said. She consented to being taken to Columbus Regional Hospital for a blood draw.

Lt. Mike Moore inventoried Parker’s vehicle. He reported finding eight syringes on the floor.

On the way to the hospital, Parker said she had been depressed and was trying to stay clean. She said she was kicked out of her parents’ house and had lost custody of her child. She said a person she was living with had forced her to inhale meth and marijuana two days ago. She admitted to taking three prescription medications that morning, the police report said.

She was charged July 12 with unlawful possession of a syringe, a Level 6 felony; operating a vehicle while intoxicated — endangering a person, a Class A misdemeanor; operating a vehicle with a Schedule I or II controlled substance or its metabolite in the body, a Class C misdemeanor; criminal recklessness, a Class B misdemeanor; and possession of paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor.