Couple Sentenced for Child Abuse, Drugs

An unemployed couple who were raising their four children in a Port Hueneme house filled with trash were sentenced to jail for manufacturing methamphetamine and abusing their children.

Guy W. Cole, 39, pleaded guilty May 18 to making methamphetamine in the garage. He was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail.

His wife, Tammi D. Cole, 36, pleaded guilty to child abuse and child endangerment. She was sentenced to three months in jail. The couple were also placed on three years probation.

The couple were arrested April 28 after officials responded to an anonymous tip.

When police arrived at the white blue-trimmed house in the 1500 block of North 6th Place, they found a makeshift lab in the garage filled with beakers, scales, packaging materials and chemicals used to make the drug.

Betty Cole, who lives next door to her son, was given temporary custody of her grandchildren, ages 16, 14, 4 and 3.

According to officials who arrived on the scene, most of the interior walls of the home had been gutted and electrical wiring dangled throughout the house. Although the power had been shut off, police believed the couple had illegally hooked up wiring connected to electrical lines outside.

Sgt. Jerry Beck said at the time that the home’s condition was “the worst I’ve seen in 22 years of law enforcement.” He said the residence was filled with trash, rotting food, soiled mattresses and overturned furniture.

“It was so bad, it’s hard to describe,” he said at the time. “When I walked through, it wasn’t like I was just stepping on piles, I was elevated a couple of feet . . . In some places it was 5 feet.”