MORGANTON, N.C.,None — A mother accused of lying to officers about the kidnapping of her children was back in court Tuesday, this time on allegations of serial drunken driving.
Christy Marie Avery, 35, of 230 Falls St. Apt. D was charged Monday night with habitual impaired driving, according to an arrest warrant. Trooper Brad Clark of the N.C. State Highway Patrol swore in the warrant that Avery was thrice convicted of driving while impaired — twice in 2008 and once in 2009.
Bond was set at $5,000 secured with her first appearance scheduled for Tuesday.
The new charge stems from her arrest last week, also by Clark, on allegations of drunken driving.
The trooper stopped Avery at 12:25 a.m. on Saturday and charged the 35-year-old mother with DWI, failure to maintain lane control, driving with a revoked license, using a fictitious tag, borrowing a license plate and having an open container.
Clark said the woman was driving erratically, nearly striking the side of a bridge while getting off Interstate 40 at exit 105.
According to criminal citations, Avery had a 0.19-blood-alcohol content — more than twice the 0.08 legal limit — and her 1998 Dodge car was impounded.
During the arrest, Avery told Clark that her boyfriend kidnapped her two children.
Investigator Joshua Falls of the Morganton Department of Public Safety was called in to investigate. He soon found out Avery had actually dropped her children off with a friend in Hildebran the night before and was on her way to pick them up when Clark stopped her.
Public Safety arrested Avery at her home Saturday night and charged with filing a false police report and two counts of child abuse in connection with the bogus story.
Clark was unsure why the woman lied about the kidnapping, but was not surprised when police charged her.
Even before he contacted Morganton officers about her claims, Clark says her story seemed funny.
"We could kinda tell (she was lying,)" he said. "… She kept changing things."
Falls believes she made up the story to get out of a DWI charge.
"When people get scared, sometimes they do things against their better judgment," he said.
Police take issue with false claims such as Avery's, Falls said.
He said a lot of manpower went into investigating her claim. The National Center for Missing Children issued an Amber Alert on the children and officers in Burke and surrounding counties hit the pavement in search of the children. The FBI even contacted local lawmen to offer its assistance.
"There were a lot of resources put into this," he said.
[ Click here to read the full story from Channel 9's newspaper partner, the Morganton News Herald. ]