Mason Chism makes court appearance

A Norfork man facing a number of charges appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court/Criminal Division Monday, October 20.

Twenty-three-year-old Mason Hunter Chism entered a not guilty plea to charges including drug and drug paraphernalia possession, refusal to submit to arrest, hindering apprehension and contempt of court.

Chism’s latest arrest came October 2 when Baxter County Sheriff’s deputies and officers from the Community Corrections office in Mountain Home went to a residence along Red’s Landing Trail in the Norfork area seeking Chism who was listed as a probation absconder and a person with active arrest warrants.

Information had also been received that Chism was selling methamphetamine from the residence. The officers were cautioned Chism might be armed.

The officers were admitted to the house only after they knocked loudly on the doors and walls of the residence and shouted to identify themselves.

Before being let into the house, the officers reported hearing people walking and talking inside the residence.

The door was answered by 38-year-old Jamie Woodcock. She professed not to know who was inside the house, then told the officers the only people in the house were those who lived there.

Thirty-three-year-old Ashley Henson was found sitting on a bed in one of the rooms. She also said she did not know who was in the house because she “just stayed in her room.”

In a bedroom at the rear of the house, Community Corrections officers saw a blue blanket in a closet that appeared out of place. It was described as having “a rounded hump shape to it while everything else in the closet was angular.

One of the officers pulled the blanket back part way exposing a man’s leg but the person underneath jerked the blanket away from the officer.

Chism was eventually found under the blanket.

In addition to the three people found in the house, officers also located almost 90 grams of methamphetamine. Some of the drug was said to have been packaged in a way that would be suitable for retail sales.

The individual packages weighed from two-to-slightly-more-than-seven-grams. There was a “substantial amount of methamphetamine found that had not been processed.
Henson is charged with hindering apprehension and Woodcock with hindering apprehension, possession of methamphetamine and items of paraphernalia used to ingest the drug and to make the meth ready for sale.

PAST RUN-INS WITH THE LAW

Chism has had past run-ins with the law. In a Baxter County case filed in 2022, Chism was charged with possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia used to ingest the drug.

He was arrested in mid-June 2022 when a Mountain Home police officer was called to the Sonic Drive-In to check on a male asleep at the wheel of a pickup truck.

The officer woke Chism up and asked him to exit the vehicle and reported seeing a pipe used to smoke methamphetamine behind the handle of the driver’s side door that was left open.

A clear plastic bag was also found containing 4.1 grams of a white crystalline substance that field tested positive for methamphetamine.

Chism was found guilty of the charges in late February 2023 and put on probation for 36 months. A petition was filed September 9 to revoke the probation and a hearing is set for November 17.

An Izard County case was opened on Chism in 2023. He was charged with six counts of forgery for passing fake $20 bills. The bills were reported to have been passed at the Dollar General Store and a gas station in Calico Rock.

According to the probable cause affidavit, all five of the bills passed at the Dollar General Store bore the same serial number.

Investigators were able to review video of the incident taken by surveillance cameras at the business.

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