A Festus woman on probation for drug trafficking and child endangerment has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in a burglary at a home in Crystal City, court records show.
On July 26, Tiffany B. Spence, 29, pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and three counts of stealing a firearm. That same day Jefferson County Div. 4 Circuit Judge Brenda Stacey sentenced Spence to 10 years for burglary and seven years for each of the other three charges, with the sentences to be served concurrently, or at the same time, for a total of 10 years, according to court documents.
Jefferson County assistant prosecuting attorney Lindsay E. Whalen handled the case.
Stacey also revoked Spence’s probation stemming from her previous offenses.
In the most recent case, Spence drove a 2013 Chevrolet Cruze to a home on Burgess Avenue in Crystal City at about 6:30 a.m. Aug. 15, 2022. She knocked on the home’s front door, and when no one answered, she drove the car behind the home, the probable-cause statement in the case said.
Spence told investigators two men who were passengers in the Cruze broke into the home, and they stole four guns, ammunition, firearm magazines, a prescription box and a backpack. The stolen items were worth more than $5,000, the report said.
In the prior case, Spence was arrested in April 2016 at a home on Roy Drive in Arnold. Investigators believed the home was being used as a lab to produce methamphetamine, and Spence was living at the home with her child. Investigators found numerous items used to manufacture meth stored in a bedroom where the child was cared for, the probable-cause statement in that case said.
In September 2017, Spence was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking and five years for endangering the welfare of a child, but those sentences were suspended and she was placed on five years’ probation, according to court records.
Spence currently is in the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia.