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| Virginia Ervin gave up college and motherhood to protect her criminal boyfriend after he set her and her baby on fire |
“She then realized that both her and her child’s hair were on fire”
Not the sort of words you’ll ever hear leading up to a ‘Mother of the Year’ acceptance speech, but those just so happen to be the exact words written in the affidavit prepared by officers from the Missoula Police Department after investigating the aftermath of a hash oil related explosion earlier this month.
18-year old Virginia Ervin, a student at the University of Montana, initially avoided being arrested in connection to the apartment explosion that we reported on two weeks ago. As the smoke was still clearing on the scene, she readily admitted that she made a conscious decision to “just chill” with her infant child in the same apartment where the highly explosive hash oil extraction was being performed. Still, she walked away free…until last Friday.
In the wake of the accident, we reported in detail on just how big of a recurring dope Ervin’s boyfriend, 24-year old Patrick Wayne Austin, really is. With one near-death experience and a burnt down shed on his resume as an “extract artist”, his simple-minded lies to the police after the explosion earned him a backseat ride to the county jail, where he has been sitting ever since.
You’d think that her close brush with disaster and then with the wrath of law enforcement would have scared the freshman student straight, but according to investigation details released in the wake of her arrest last Friday, apparently Virginia Ervin just couldn’t walk away from a life of crime.
In her first courtroom appearance related to the October 12th explosion, Ervin’s legal counsel argued that her lack of a prior criminal record should be considered by the court, and that she should be released from the jail immediately.
Deputy Missoula County Attorney Jason Marks argued to the contrary, presenting evidence that not only did Ervin present a flight risk, but that she had been clearly conspiring with her jailed boyfriend via telephone since the day of the explosion.
Despite the fact that she was recovering from multiple 2nd and 3rd degree burns, police reports state that Ervin made several requests to access the crime scene in the days following the accident, claiming that she needed to retrieve certain items needed for school.
With suspicion mounting, Missoula Police Detective Stacey Lear reached out to colleagues at the county jail and was given access to all calls made by Patrick Wayne Austin from behind bars since he was taken in on October 12th.
In those phone records they discovered all of the calls made between Austin and Ervin, and the evidence in the transcripts is pretty damning for the young mother.
In those calls, Austin specifically told Ervin to use the “school” excuse, and to snag a backpack he had to leave behind, allegedly containing $2,000 cash, miscellaneous drugs, and Austin’s evidence-saturated cell phone.
| Patrick Wayne Austin, “extract artist” |
In another call, Ervin proudly reported that she had dug out all of the MDMA and coke that the cops failed to discover, and had disposed of it properly.
And when Austin brazenly instructed his girlfriend, via jailhouse telephone, to start collecting on the debts owed to him by his customers, she proudly informed him that she had already rounded up over $700 from deadbeat clients on his behalf.
Austin advised Ervin to tell anyone who would listen that the two of them had a “common-law marriage”, in hopes of avoiding her mandatory testimony in the case. He also told her that she could flee the state to avoid being subpoenaed. That last bit is where the prosecution is pointing when they talk about Ervin’s potential flight risk, and is why they have pushed for her to remain behind bars until her trial.
Ervin faces three separate felony charges, and one additional misdemeanor, for her alleged role in a life-threatening crime that involved BHO, coke, MDMA, hallucinogenic mushrooms, firearms, and even the life of her 19-month old child.
There are too many 19-month olds in this world who, by no fault of their own, were born into a life of suffering that could be significantly, if not completely, alleviated by properly made hash oil. Virginia Ervin’s selfish and destructive form of motherhood only helps to prolong prohibition, and keep those countless children suffering while lawmakers frantically point to crime scenes like hers.