A man and woman in Racine are accused of selling drugs while their five-year-old granddaughter was with them.
Racine police say it happened numerous times. Investigators used a “confidential informant” to bust the couple.
Edwin “Mike” Hill, 52, and Latasha Hollie, 40, are both charged with multiple felonies - neglecting a child, manufacturing/delivering cocaine, and maintaining a drug trafficking place.
Hill and Hollie were allegedly dealing cocaine out of their home on the corner of 16th Street and West Boulevard. They also operated out of their car, a black Ford Expedition.
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s just not adding up right now,” says Miracle Lynch, one of Hollie’s daughters.
“I still don’t believe she was selling drugs,” adds Mahkyla Lynch, another daughter.
But in the criminal complaints for Hill and Hollie, police describe a drug deal happening outside the house “while a five-year-old was present, as well as two other children that appeared to be around eight-years-old.”
Police also reference a drug deal out of the Ford Expedition. They say Hill was in the driver’s seat, Hollie in the front passenger seat, and the “five-year-old was seated in the backseat during the transaction.”
Family says Hill and Hollie have been together for at least 13 years, and that Hollie is the legal guardian of the five-year-old girl, and her eight-year-old brother.
“My mom has custody of my niece and nephew,” Miracle Lynch says. “They love her. My mom takes care of them.”
Both Hill and Hollie have criminal records. One of Hollie’s past convictions has to do with her children. Back in 2005, she pleaded no contest to failing to send a child to school.
Hill and Hollie face more than 40 years in prison and at least $115,000 in fines.
