A 65-year-old Columbus couple is facing decades in prison after investigators say they turned their own home into a drug dealing operation, following a search warrant executed on the 500 block of Parkway Drive on Tuesday. Bobby Roberts and his wife, Madalene Roberts, both 65, now face some of the most serious drug charges Indiana law allows, including Level 2 felony dealing a controlled substance and Level 3 felony dealing methamphetamine. Two other Columbus residents present during the raid, 37-year-old Austin Witsman and 41-year-old Amber David, were arrested on far lesser misdemeanor charges.
According to The Republic, the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team received information that Bobby and Madalene Roberts were dealing drugs from their home, prompting investigators to gather enough evidence to apply for a search warrant. That warrant was issued and executed on Tuesday, with Columbus Police Department SWAT initially clearing the residence before investigators continued searching once the home was secured. JNET is a combined unit of the Bartholomew County Sheriff's Office, the Columbus Police Department and the Bartholomew County Prosecutor's Office, and it targets the manufacturing and abuse of dangerous drugs across Columbus and Bartholomew County.
What Investigators Say They Found
Inside the Parkway Drive home, investigators located suspected methamphetamine, marijuana, spice and drug paraphernalia, the outlet reports. Those findings led to a stack of charges against the homeowners that go well beyond the drug counts alone. Both Bobby and Madalene Roberts face maintaining a common nuisance, a Level 6 felony, along with possession of paraphernalia as a Class C misdemeanor.
The charges diverge slightly between the two on the possession-of-marijuana count: Bobby Roberts faces that charge as a Class B misdemeanor, while Madalene Roberts faces both a Class B misdemeanor possession-of-marijuana charge and a separate Class C misdemeanor for possession of paraphernalia. Witsman and David, meanwhile, were each booked on a single charge of visiting a common nuisance, a Class B misdemeanor. All four suspects should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
What the Felony Charges Could Mean
The gap between the Roberts' top charges and the misdemeanors facing Witsman and David is stark under Indiana sentencing law. A Level 2 felony conviction, the top count against Bobby Roberts, carries a fixed prison term of 10 to 30 years with an advisory sentence of 17.5 years and a fine of up to $10,000, according to Indiana sentencing guidelines under state law. A Level 3 felony conviction, the dealing methamphetamine charge both Roberts face, carries 3 to 16 years with an advisory sentence of 9 years and up to a $10,000 fine.
The maintaining-a-common-nuisance charge against both Roberts, a Level 6 felony, is punishable by 6 months to 2.5 years in prison under Indiana law. By contrast, the Class B misdemeanor visiting charges against Witsman and David top out at 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, as outlined by Bernhardt Phillips LLP. That distinction underscores how differently Indiana law treats those accused of running a drug operation versus those merely present at one.
A Task Force With a Track Record
JNET was established in 2015 as a combined task force uniting undercover officers from the Columbus Police Department, Bartholomew County Sheriff's deputies and a deputy prosecutor, according to the City of Columbus Police Department. The unit also works with federal partners including the DEA, FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to disrupt drug supply chains reaching Bartholomew County.
The Parkway Drive raid follows a pattern of JNET sweeps in the area. Hoodline previously reported on a Woodleigh Court cocaine bust in May and a July case where an overdose save led investigators to a suspected fentanyl stash. Last September, JNET arrested nine people on 17 felony drug charges in a sweep dubbed “Operation Cold Front,” according to reporting from The Republic.
Overdose Numbers Trending Down
The Parkway Drive arrests come as Bartholomew County shows some signs of progress against its drug crisis. Emergency room visits for drug overdoses dropped to a provisional 122 in 2025, down from 165 in 2024 and 206 in 2023, according to Indiana Department of Health metrics cited by the same outlet. That decline follows years of severe impact, including 46 drug-related deaths recorded in the county in 2022 alongside a drug-related hospitalization rate of 130.9 per 100,000 residents, per data compiled by Health Street.
Community harm-reduction efforts have run alongside the enforcement push. In May, the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention partnered with Indiana University's Prevention Insights program to expand online Citizen Opioid Responders training and deploy community NaloxBoxes stocked with free naloxone across Bartholomew County. Whether those parallel tracks — aggressive JNET enforcement and expanded overdose-reversal access — continue to move the county's numbers in the right direction remains to be seen as the Parkway Drive case moves through the courts.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)