Lab owner gets prison time for faking drug tests that cost parents custody of kids
By Lee Brown
New York Post
November 20, 2020
The former owner of an Alabama lab has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting to falsifying drug tests, causing multiple parents to lose custody of their kids, according to a report.
“I know I did wrong,” Brandy Murrah, 37, told her sentencing hearing last Thursday after pleading guilty to a felony charge of perjury as well as 16 misdemeanor counts of forgery, according to the Dothan Eagle.
“I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life … I’m sorry for anyone I ever hurt. I really did not do this intentionally to ever hurt anyone,” she told Judge William Filmore, while offering no motive for the forgeries.
Some of the parents who lost custody of their children because of the bogus results from Murrah’s A&J Lab Collections in Ozark told the court of the pain Murrah’s lies caused their families.
“I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest because I knew I was doing right with this one,” said Grace Locke, whose 3-month-old baby was taken away from her for three weeks in 2017 after her drug test results falsely showed that she was positive for methamphetamine.
“I don’t understand why anybody would ever do that to any family, any children, for no reason,” Locke said, according to the Dothan Eagle.
Jennifer Severs told the court how it took her months to get her kids back after the lab claimed she’d used drugs — even though a doctor never even made a screening, the outlet said.
“This is a daily battle for me on who I can trust,” she reportedly told the court. “This is a daily battle for my children.”
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