Women arrested for public indecency

Published 7:04 pm Friday, September 18, 2009

Chatsworth Police Chief Terry Martin called it “kind of a bizarre thing.”

“They decided to just drop their britches and pee in the floor,” he said Friday.

Two Dalton women have been arrested after the owner of a laundromat in Chatsworth saw them urinating in the floor and smoking in a posted area on a video camera recording, officials said.

Shannon Bennett, 38, of 300 Auburn Court, was charged Wednesday with public indecency and smoking in a public place. She was released from the Murray County Jail later that day on a $1,000 bond.

Judy Irene Darnell, 34, of 4424 Nance Springs Road, was charged Thursday with public indecency and smoking in a public place. She stayed in the county jail overnight but Magistrate Judge Bryant Cochran gave her a $1,000 bond on Friday and she bonded out later in the day.

The incident took place on Sept. 10 at the Coin Laundry in Southgate Shopping Center. Martin said he had gotten a call from the owner about the video. A phone call to the laundry on Friday was not immediately returned.

“There are ‘No Smoking’ signs posted in the laundry,” Martin said, “and I assume the restroom doors are marked men and women.”

Darnell was charged with being a pedestrian under the influence in 1997, and had a drunk and disorderly charge and bench warrant served on her in 2008.

Phone numbers for Bennett and Darnell could not be found.