Drug house search reveals a hidden door — and a body in the crawl space, Wisc. cops say

The first search of a home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin — where a tipster said a man overdosed and died last month — turned up nothing.

But two days after the initial search, on Nov. 20, a second tip came in: This time the tipster said an overdose victim’s body was in the apartment but was hidden, police said in a news release. Police said the tipster told them Andrea Mullens, a 29-year-old resident of the apartment, wrapped the corpse in a blanket and shoved it in a closet — and that she was plotting to hide the body elsewhere soon, the Sheboygan Press reports.

Cops searched the home a second time the afternoon of Nov. 20.

Hidden behind some plastic shelving, police discovered a door on a paneled wall. Police said they opened the door and went into a crawlspace, where they found the dead body of 30-year-old Matthew Mercure, the Press reports.

Police said Mecure’s cause of death was consistent with an overdose.

Mullens was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges including hiding a corpse, maintaining a drug trafficking house, theft from a corpse, bail jumping and contributing to the delinquency of a child, police said.

Mullens is being held at the Sheboygan County Detention Center, according to online jail records. She’s due in court for a preliminary hearing this week and is being held on $100,000 bond, NBC 26 reports.

Investigators have accused Mullens of running a drug house — which some called “the shop” — out of the apartment her parents owned, WBAY reports. Witnesses said meth, heroin, and Xanax could all be purchased at the apartment, the Press reports, with one witness telling police: “That house was my downfall.”

The apartment was empty when officers searched it the second time because Mullens’ parents had kicked her out. It was so cold during the search that an officer inside got a runny nose, the Press reports.

Mercure overdosed and died at the home on Nov. 17, according to police, just a day before the first tip came in reporting a death at the apartment. Police said two minors were there when he died, WBAY reports.

After Mercure overdosed on heroin and stopped breathing, Mullens used the opioid overdose-reversing drug Narcan on him, took off his clothes and tried to revive him — and it appeared to work. But police said Mullens then injected Mercure with even more drugs, the Press reports.

Police said Mullens and another witness then put on latex gloves, dressed Mercure’s body in the clothes they had removed and bundled him in a blanket before moving him to the crawl space. The witness said he helped Mullens because he feared that otherwise Mullens would inject him with drugs from the syringe she had used on Mercure, the Press reports.

Investigators said Mullens took Mercure’s debit and ID cards after he died, WBAY reports.

Mullens, a mother of four, was arrested in a stabbing earlier this year, MySheboygan reports.

This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Drug house search reveals a hidden door — and a body in the crawl space, Wisc. cops say."