Image
A 37-year-old Georgia middle school teacher was arrested Thursday in connection with the overdose death of an 18-year-old high school student. According to Atlanta's WSB-TV Channel 2, Emily Smith, a sixth-grade math teacher at Winder-Barrow Middle School has been arrested and charged with facilitating the sale of the powerful opiate methadone and the tranquilizer Xanax to a teen girl who was found dead in her home the next day of an apparent overdose.

Smith reportedly helped set up the sale of the drugs by way of a series of text and voice communications on her cell phone on February 13, the day before the teenager died.

Barrow County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Sgt. Faye Spaulding told Channel 2, "Miss Smith conspired with the victim by cellphone in reference to obtaining a controlled substance prior to her death. The toxicology report determined there were high levels of a controlled substance in her system. The cause of death has not yet been determined."

The Sheriff's Office said that a criminal investigation is underway and more arrests are possible.

Barrow County School Superintendent Dr. Wanda Creel told the Barrow County News that Smith has been fired.

"She is no longer an employee with the Barrow County School System," Creel said, "and an ethics complaint is being filed with the Georgia Professional Standards Commission."

Watch the video, embedded via WSB-TV Channel 2, below: