Police: Woman seen talking to utility pole admitted to taking methadone

Knox County Sheriff’s deputies say a woman found outside a Corbin apartment complex Monday morning, “talking to a utility pole,” admitted she had taken methadone.

Deputy Claude Hudson arrested 42-year-old Cynthia A. Lawson of Pineville outside Schoolhouse Apartments in the Moore Hill area, about 10:15 a.m. on one count of public intoxication – controlled substance.

Hudson wrote in the arrest citation that he was dispatched to the scene in response to a call that an intoxicated female was behind one of the buildings talking to the pole as if it were a real person.

Hudson made contact with the female, later identified as Lawson, who reportedly began pointing at several people claiming they were getting away and that he should catch them before they escaped.

“There was no one there, etc.,” Hudson wrote in the arrest citation.

Upon further questioning, Hudson stated that Lawson told him she was looking for her son, noting her pants were covered with mud and debris from the wooded area behind the apartments.

Hudson said Lawson told him she had gotten off work and stopped by the methadone clinic before coming to the apartments to take a shower.

When Hudson spoke with the caller, who identified himself as a maintenance man for the apartments, the man reported seeing Lawson walking around behind the apartments in the rain.

“He (maintenance man) stated he observed her bent down talking to an underground transformer as if it were a real person,” Hudson wrote in the arrest citation. “He stated once he approached her and asked her what was going on that she looked at him and stated, ‘You’re not him,’”

Hudson stated the maintenance man told him Lawson did not reside at the apartment complex.

Citing the danger Lawson posed to herself and others, Hudson said he took her into custody on the intoxication charge.

Lawson was lodged in the Knox County Detention Center.