FARMINGTON — A judge Friday continued bail for a local couple charged this week with running a methamphetamine lab at their home.

Douglas Theriault, 37, and his wife, Katherine Theriault, 28, of 488 Knowlton Corner Road remained in the Franklin County Detention Center on Friday evening on $10,000 cash bail each, a corrections officer said.

They are charged with aggravated unlawful operation of a meth lab and endangering the welfare of a child.

The Theriaults pleaded not guilty Wednesday to endangering the welfare of their children ages 7, 3 and 1.

However, they did not enter a plea to the drug charge because it is a felony that requires the case to be presented to a grand jury for possible indictment.

The couple appeared separately Friday before Judge Charles Dow with defense attorney Daniel Dube advising them via videoconference from the Farmington Unified Court to the jail.

Dow set bail conditions prohibiting them from possessing methamphetamine or any ingredients to make it, and prohibiting them from having contact with their children, who are staying with Katherine Theriault’s sister, unless they go through the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

 

The couple’s defense attorneys will be able to revisit the bail issue.

Dube said Katherine Theriault is in need of many services, including mental health care. She has no place to go if released from jail, hasn’t worked in two years and is not able to help her sister with the children, he said.

According to an affidavit written by Farmington Sgt. Edward Hastings IV, he and officer Jacob Richards responded to a report of an overdose at the couple’s home at about 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Hastings was met on the front porch by a 7-year-old child who directed him inside where Hastings met with Katherine Theriault. Douglas Theriault was lying on the kitchen floor and his respirations were less than four per minute.

Hastings administered Narcan, an opioid blocker, along with other first aid measures before Theriault was taken by ambulance to Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

Hastings wrote that Theriault was recently arrested for violating conditions of release by testing positive for meth.

Police found a needle cap and white powder on the kitchen floor and near the kitchen sink. They also noted that Katherine Theriault exhibited signs of meth use.

“During our interaction at the residence, the children were sitting on a pullout bed in the living room, in front of the TV, and were otherwise exposed to the drug-use environment,” Hastings wrote. “There was only a short dividing wall as tall as an oven between the children and where Mr. Theriault collapsed.”

Richards noticed a “one-pot meth lab” in a one-gallon milk jug on the front lawn to the left of the entryway door. Maine Drug Enforcement agents confirmed it was consistent with the manufacturing  of methamphetamine.

While executing a search warrant, police found all of the components for manufacturing meth in Douglas Theriault’s bedroom. Katherine Theriault “admitted” to a drug agent that she bought pseudoephedrine, a primary ingredient in meth, Hastings wrote.

The couple are scheduled for separate court appearances Aug. 7.

A conviction on the drug charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.

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