A Vandergrift couple was ordered to stand trial after lab tests on their two young children showed they had cocaine in their systems.
Craig James Rearick, 36, and Krystal Diane Kus, 30, of the 1100 block of Lincoln Avenue each were charged with two felony counts of endangering the welfare of children.
They were released from custody on a $50,000 unsecured bond and waived their rights to a preliminary hearing during an April 25 appearance before District Judge Cheryl Peck Yakopec. Yakopec ordered them to stand trial in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court, where formal arraignment is scheduled for June 28.
Vandergrift police began investigating the couple last June after receiving a ChildLine report from a Westmore- land County Children’s Bureau caseworker, according to a criminal complaint.
The caseworker ordered a hair-exposure test on the couple’s 4- and 5-year-old children after finding a white powder “all over” the couple’s home, the complaint said.
The tests came back positive for cocaine and cocaine metabolites, which are formed when the drug is processed by the liver and shows that it was in their bloodstream.
In addition to the white powder in the house, the caseworker was investigating reports that the couple would blow “crack smoke” into the children’s faces while they were using the drug, the complaint said.
When police questioned Kus, she told them that the crack was stored in a safe in the basement and that she used an upstairs bedroom when she smoked. She told investigators that the children often “followed her around” while she was getting high.
When police questioned Rearick, he told them they used the drug in the basement and that the safe where it was kept locked up was upstairs.
He said there was one time that the 5-year-old was suffering from a cough for which they sought medical treatment.
Kus told police that she never noticed the children being sick from ingesting cocaine. She claimed that her parents and grandparents, who also were around the children, smoked crack, the complaint said.
When police questioned Kus’ mother and her husband, they said they did not use cocaine and offered to let police search the house without getting a warrant.
The couple told police there were drugs “everywhere” in Rearick and Kus’ home, and that the children were “doing much better” since being taken from their parents and placed in foster care.
Kus’ grandmother told police that she watched the children every weekend until they were removed from her granddaughter and that the “the only one who ever used drugs around the kids in the family was Krystal.”
