Students find meth in teacher’s hair scrunchie during event

An Indiana middle school teacher was arrested last week after she was allegedly caught with meth hidden inside her hair scrunchie during a “Family Fun Night” event at school.

Sarah Duncan, 35, allegedly took a picture during an event at Helfrich Park STEM Academy on Sept. 12 with two students — who noticed her unusual hair scrunchie afterward inside the photo booth,

“Both juveniles stated that Duncan let her hair down for the photo,” Evansville Police Department officers wrote in a probable cause affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital.

“After the photo, the juveniles cleaned up the area and located a blueish-colored velvet-type scrunchie with a white zipper on the table,” the affidavit continued.

“They noticed the scrunchie was heavier than a typical scrunchie, they opened the zipper pouch and observed a glass vial that contained a white powder substance that the two believed to be drugs along with a cut straw with white powder,” the affidavit read.

The students immediately notified another teacher, who instructed them to throw it in the trash.

That teacher then secured the scrunchie in her classroom and notified the school’s principal and assistant principal.

After the event ended at about 6 p.m., Duncan was seen by two janitors “frantically searching for some sort of hair tie.”

Security camera footage taken at the school during the event shows Duncan, who was an eighth-grade teacher, wearing the scrunchie earlier that night.

A field test for methamphetamine administered on the scrunchie came back positive.

Days later, the school’s deputy chief of staff and Evansville Police Chief Tim Alford went with Duncan to a nearby clinic so she could take a drug test.

Her first two urine samples were too small and did not “reach the temperature for testing,” police said. While she made a third attempt, officers “observed an unauthorized collection container” fall out of her shorts.

“Duncan stated that she was not aware of the pouch/container in her shorts until after she was providing her second sample,” police wrote in their affidavit.

“Duncan stated that she does not know how or when the pouch/container got into her shorts that day. Duncan stated that there may be another one of them at her residence but that they were not purchased by her, but by someone she knows who probably uses them to pass drug screens.”

The teacher was booked into Vanderburgh County Jail last Wednesday on one count of criminal possession and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. She was released on a $1,000 bond.

Duncan was allegedly fired the same day as her arrest, WFIE reported.