A mother was arrested and charged after she allegedly held a pistol to her own head during a standoff on Interstate 45, Texas, that caused the major highway to shut down for hours.
Authorities arrested 32-year-old Brooke Christine Lindley following the incident, which left drivers stranded and law enforcement scrambling to de-escalate the potentially deadly situation. She has since been charged with endangering a child and possession of a controlled substance.
She was booked into the McLennan County Jail but has since been released on bond.
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“Thank you to all the brave first responders who helped resolve the situation peacefully,” a Texas constable said, per KWTX. “The north and south bound lanes of the North Freeway are slowly reopening. Great work!”
Why Lindley has shut down Interstate 45
The ordeal began days earlier when Lindley’s own children told their father something alarming: their mother had been growing psychedelic mushrooms inside her bedroom, per the arrest warrant.
On 25 May, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant and raided Lindley’s home on Park Place Drive. Officers discovered “well over four grams of psilocybin controlled-substance mushrooms.”
They also found a full home-growing operation spread across Lindley’s bedroom and bathroom. Two large containers with actively growing mushrooms, a dehydrator filled with drying mushrooms, and several clear containers of dried psychedelic mushrooms were all seized from the scene.
Police said the mushrooms were “in clear and easy to open containers that her children could have opened, and if ingested, potentially caused mental impairment,” per KWTX.
The children, whose ages have not been disclosed, reportedly told authorities that Lindley warned them not to touch the mushrooms.
“Even though they were in her bedroom in plain sight,” the warrant notes, “they also said [Lindley] was consuming the mushrooms inside the residence.”
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Psilocybin mushrooms are a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, making their possession or cultivation illegal in most states, including Texas.
