Husband, son face Rx charges
The husband and son of a missing Post Falls woman were charged Tuesday for allegedly filling her prescriptions in the months since her disappearance.
Post Falls Police arrested 50-year-old William L. Tolson and 23-year-old Lawrence Ray Tolson on Monday in Rathdrum. Both remained in the Kootenai County Jail Tuesday with bail for each set at $20,000.
Lt. Greg McLean said suspicious circumstances surround the disappearance of 46-year-old Roxann Tolson, and authorities fear she may have been the victim of foul play.
Neither her husband nor son has been charged in connection with Tolson’s disappearance, but McLean said they are considered suspects.
“The only people we can look at that possibly know what happened to Ms. Tolson are her family,” McLean said. “When you have someone that leaves, and there’s the uncooperativeness of the husband in helping clarify some points for us, it leads us to believe he’s not being truthful, he’s hiding something.”
According to police reports, William Tolson has provided conflicting information about the last time he saw his wife and what she was wearing at the time.
William Tolson has told police that he last saw his wife Aug. 14, at their home on Mullan Avenue in Post Falls. He didn’t attempt to report her missing until mid-November, according to police reports.
He was mistakenly told by Post Falls Police to file a report in Rathdrum, where he had moved. He never did, according to police reports.
In January, Roxann Tolson’s great uncle called Post Falls Police, and they began an investigation into her disappearance.
Detectives say they discovered in late January that William Tolson and Lawrence Tolson had been filling Roxann Tolson’s prescriptions for antidepressants and pain medication while she was missing, allegedly for their own use.
William Tolson was charged with two felony counts of fraudulent possession of a controlled substance. Lawrence Tolson was charged with a single count of fraudulent possession of a controlled substance and delivery of a controlled substance.
“I had just picked those up on request from my dad,” Lawrence Tolson told Magistrate Scott Wayman during Tuesday’s court hearing. “I wasn’t selling them or anything like that. I was just delivering them to my father.”
When Wayman asked Lawrence Tolson if he had family in the area, he listed several relatives.
“And my mom in the area somewhere,” he said.
A taxi driver told police he remembers picking up a woman matching Roxann Tolson’s description and taking her to the airport late one evening.
The taxi driver said the woman told him that she wanted to get away from her husband, according to police reports. He said she had a swollen eye and bruises on her wrists.