Aspen – With police hot on her heels, a 32-year-old Snowmass Village woman barged into a house Wednesday night to take cover.
Unfortunately for her, the house she walked into belonged to none other than Aspen Police Chief Loren Ryerson.
And the woman was carrying 4.5 grams of cocaine, a crack pipe and an assortment of other drug paraphernalia in her purse.
“Of all the places to walk into,” said the chief’s wife, Mary Ryerson, who was home at the time with her two kids.
The woman, Martha Ruth Byrum, was being followed by two officers who grew suspicious of her erratic behavior, police said.
She was forced to abandon her 1986 Chevrolet station wagon in front of the chief’s house when it apparently ran out of gas.
Byrum startled the police chief’s wife and children when she made her way inside. The chief wasn’t at home.
“She knocked on a window and just opened our sliding glass door and came in,” Mary Ryerson said.
Byrum asked to use the phone and the restroom, Mary Ryerson said.
A moment later, police Sgt. Bill Linn came to the door.
“I asked Byrum what she was doing, and she was almost not comprehendible,” Linn wrote in an arrest affidavit. “She was shaking badly, and speaking very quickly. … I could also smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage on Byrum’s breath.”
After she was handcuffed, Byrum tried to escape from the patrol car twice. While police were searching her purse, she managed to escape, but they caught her about 30 yards away.
At the Pitkin County Jail, police continued their search of Byrum’s purse, and they say they found a metal spoon, a film canister of what appeared to be baking soda, a filter screen and a glass tube, in addition to the cocaine and crack pipe.
She faces charges of first-degree criminal trespass, possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Having lived in Aspen for more than 30 years and being wedded to the police chief, Mary Ryerson had grown accustomed to feeling safe. But she said the experience was frightening, thought-provoking and, now that it is over, a bit amusing.
