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JS woman faces drug charges after syringes found at church

JERSEY SHORE — A 27-year-old suspected drug user faces charges for allegedly leaving nearly a dozen “uncapped used syringes” in the exterior staircase entrance to the Sunday school at Calvary Baptist Church” on Thompson Street, according to Tiadaghton Valley Regional police.

On the morning the syringes were discovered, July 5, church officials were “adamant about charges being filed due to the danger the syringes posed to churchgoers and children,” officer Tyler Bierly said in an affidavit.

The church’s surveillance video recorded a woman, police identified as Lindsey Stewart, going down the stairwell and back up the set of steps.

“I noticed 10 syringes and various uncapped needles at the bottom of the steps. There was blood in the syringes and what appeared to be blood spots on the concrete,” Bierly said in describing what he saw when he was called to the church.

The very next day, July 6, police were called back to the church when the pastor and another church official – working at Calvary – saw the same woman on a surveillance camera walking down the same set of exterior steps.

When the church officials confronted the woman, she told told them “she was trying to come inside the church to pray,” Bierly said.

Stewart, of 710 Railroad St., told the pastor she had been struggling with narcotics “and had been using for three days,” after supposedly being clean for two years, Bierly said.

Stewart also admitted that she was getting her heroin from a man in Williamsport, but she did not know his name, the officer said.

She has been charged with recklessly endangering and possession of drug paraphernalia.

A bench warrant for her arrest was expected to be filed after she failed to appear for her recent preliminary hearing.

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