Tyler

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

A Tyler couple is behind bars after a Smith County Sheriff's deputy stopped to help two people who he thought were motorists in a stalled car.

What he found was a couple "highly intoxicated" in the middle of a major roadway with a 1-year-old child in the backseat not buckled up.

Sgt. Randy Meadows said the deputy was traveling in the 2600 block of West Erwin Street Tuesday when he noticed a car in the left-hand turn lane with a male standing by the car and a woman sitting in the driver's seat.

"He thought the car was stalled so he stopped to help, but when he tried to communicate with the driver she could not follow simple directions. He asked her to put the car in neutral so he and others could push the car out of the road and out of danger, but she couldn't perform the task," he said.

Meadows said the deputy instructed the woman, identified as 20-year-old Brittany Lynn Gilpin, to get out of the car and she refused, so he removed her as other deputies were arriving to assist him.

Deputies noticed Gilpin's passenger, Benjamin Eugene Jones, 25, was "unsteady on his feet and had slurred speech."

"They were both highly intoxicated on something. We didn't find anything in the car, but they were definitely on something," Meadows said.

He said the deputy then looked in the back of the car and found a "baby" sitting in a car seat that was not buckled.

"Both of the adults were taken into custody and transported to the jail and the child was brought to the sheriff's office and Child Protective Services was called.

"The child was taken into its custody," he said.

Meadows said both Gilpin and Jones were charged with misdemeanor public intoxication and felony child endangerment.

Both remain jailed in the Smith County Jail on bonds totaling $2,260.