LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — A former Lake County school bus driver who is defending herself from charges of making methamphetamine talked to WFTV on Wednesday and said she didn't do anything wrong.
Linda Humphrey drove Lake County students to and from school for 27 years, but now she's in jail and accused of making and using meth.
Humphrey is one of dozens of people arrested after a six-month major drug investigation the town of Altoona last month.
WFTV went to the Lake County Jail to talk to 60-year-old Humphrey on Wednesday. She denied any involvement with drugs, but detectives insist they have the proof that she traded the ingredients used to make meth for the finished product.
"I said, 'What are you talking about?' I said, 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't do those things,'" said Humphrey.
Humphrey said the thousands and thousands of children she bussed to and from school over the last 27 years know she's not a criminal.
"They know I didn't do it. They know I don't do drugs. None of these kids. Anyone that knows me, would tell you it's a lie," said Humphrey.
But sheriff's detectives said the veteran bus driver was involved with meth makers.
"Our detectives discovered that what she was doing was obtaining cold pills, Sudafed, that's used to make meth. And then trading that to the meth cooks in exchange for the finished product," said Sgt. Jim Vachon of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
And detectives said she was using the finished product.
"Did you fire her?" WFTV asked.
"She actually retired the day of her arrest," said Chris Patton, a Lake County schools spokesman.
Patton said one of Humphrey's family members delivered the retirement form.
Now, Humphrey faces felony charges and years in prison if she's convicted.
She said she doesn't know which way to turn.
"It's like someone has taken a knife and cut my life out. I don't have a life. It's gone," said Humphrey. "I worry so much about my daughter. What's going to happen to my daughter now?"
A sheriff's spokesman said they don't know if Humphrey was doing any of the meth while on her bus route.
The school system said Humphrey had a clean record over nearly three decades of employment. But district officials say a drug conviction could cost her her state pension.
Her annual salary was $27,000 during the last school year. She has not been able to come up the money to make her $65,000 bond.
"I've helped these children try to live. Why would I help them die? Because this stuff would kill you,” said Humphrey.
Meth use is a growing problem in Florida, especially locally.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the biggest meth problem in Florida is in the Central Florida area along the I-4 corridor.
Last year, meth seizures increased by 79 percent statewide. During the same year almost 200 people died as a result of meth use.
But less than half of a percent of people in Florida said that they'd used meth.
WFTV
