A Hailey woman with a bad habit of entering other people's homes and stealing prescription drugs may get another chance to put her life together.
Forty-six-year-old Gretchen Fay Biddle was sentenced Monday in 5th District Court in Hailey to four years probation and placement for up to one year in a halfway house in Idaho Falls. Judge Robert J. Elgee suspended a five-year prison sentence (three years fixed and two years indeterminate) but said he'll impose the sentence if Biddle fails to meet the conditions of her probation.
But she may have to go back to prison anyway. Biddle faces a hearing today in Pocatello before the Idaho Board of Corrections Parole Commission.
"The parole commission can decide to take you back to prison," Elgee told the defendant. "And that's out of my hands."
Biddle is no stranger to the Blaine County court system, or to the Blaine County Sheriff's Office.
Biddle alleged in 2005 that she had had a sexual relationship with former Deputy Michael Lance while she was incarcerated in the Blaine County Jail. Lance committed suicide in August of that year after he became the subject of an investigation.
The Idaho Attorney General's Office concluded in 2006 that Lance had "engaged in inappropriate behavior" with Biddle but was unable to determine whether or not Biddle and Lance had sex together.
Biddle was later sentenced to a five-year prison term for a conviction of possession of a controlled substance.
Her latest arrest came last April when she allegedly illegally entered two homes in Hailey looking for prescription drugs. When Hailey police caught up with her she was found with a bottle of prescription cough medicine taken from one of the homes. Police had evidence of illegal entry but she was only charged again with felony possession of a controlled substance.
She was on parole at the time for the earlier conviction.
"The difficulty here is that you do things that are dangerous and create the possibility of you getting shot or someone else getting hurt when you go into their houses," Elgee told the defendant.
Gretchen Fay Biddle
