DOCUMENT: Crime

Inmate Who Hid Gun In Vagina Gets 10 Years

Weapon found 17 days after Missourian was jailed

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Prison Pouch Sentence

APRIL 28--A Missouri woman has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to smuggling a loaded gun that was hidden in her vagina into a county jail, court records show.

During a Circuit Court hearing last week, Amy Wilhite, 39, copped to a felony indictment charging her with “delivery or concealment” of the weapon, a small .22 caliber revolver that was fully loaded with five rounds.

In a plea deal, Wilhite, seen at right, was sentenced to serve a decade in the custody of the Missouri Department Of Corrections. She is currently being held at the Women's Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, a state intake facility.

Wilhite, who has previously done stretches in state prison, was arrested on February 14 on gun and narcotics charges and booked into the Boone County jail in Columbia.  

An initial search of Wilhite by Columbia Police Department officers failed to locate the 4.6 ounce North American Arms revolver stashed in her body orifice. A “pat search” at the jail was followed by a strip search, neither of which detected the four-inch firearm (pictured at left).

Wilhite was in the county lockup for 17 days before jailers discovered the gun, which was wrapped in plastic among her possessions. In a probable cause statement, investigators alleged that Wilhite had “removed the firearm from her body and concealed it within her personal belongings.”

During questioning at the jail, Wilhite admitted possessing the firearm, but claimed “she was only holding it for another female detainee.” But fellow inmates in Wilhite’s housing unit “all stated Amy was in possession of the firearm,” an investigator reported.

In addition to copping to the gun smuggling charge, Wilhite pleaded guilty on April 19 to the felony drug and weapons counts for which she was originally arrested. She was ordered to serve five years on each conviction, with the sentences to run concurrently with the 10-year prison term.

As previously reported in these pages, women in Tennessee, Illinois, and Oklahoma have also been convicted of trying to enter a jail with a gun in their vagina. (2 pages)