Morsette charged in drug store robbery, arraignment delayed

A Havre woman accused of robbing thousands of pills at gunpoint — a BB gun — and selling them in a local hotel will have to wait a bit more for her first court appearance.

Arlene Morsette, born in 1984, was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in state District Court on 10 felony charges but the hearing was reset at the request of the Office of Public Defender.

A new date for the arraignment had not been set by noon today.

Morsette told investigating officers that she had been hearing voices, which had been getting worse over the last few years, and she had “had a bad month” before she was arrested, a court document says.

She is charged with taking a BB gun she had spraypainted black — after stealing both the gun and the paint — and using it July 21 in the robbery of more than 6,000 prescription pills from Western Drug pharmacy in Havre.

Officers arrested Morsette July 22 after Havre police received a tip Ryan Greenough, born in 1983, was selling drugs in a room rented at the Havre Budget Inn. Officers who conducted a probation search of the room Greenough rented — he is serving a suspended sentence on a drug charge — found Morsette there along with her 4-month-old daughter and Greenough the document says.

Officers found in the room fewer than 5,000 pills, mostly packaged in plastic bags, of types stolen in the July 21 robbery, the document says.

(Full details in Thursday’s Havre Daily News.)