We all know the premise behind the award-winning series Breaking Bad: A chemistry teacher with a disabled son gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer so he teams up with his former student to cook and sell crystal meth to cover his medical bills.
Walter White’s story is eerily similar and equally captivating to that of England’s Susan McKay: A chemistry teacher with a disabled son undergoes a series of personal tragedies which prompts her to turn her house into a drug farm growing and selling marijuana to cover her bills.
The 58-year-old chemistry teacher of 12 years narrowly escaped prison after turning her seven bedroom home into a weed farm, producing over $150,000 of pot.
According to the Daily Mail, the respected teacher suffered a series of personal tragedies that drove her to commit the crime. Her son Christopher suffered from health problems, most notably cystic fibrosis, while another son, Daniel, had committed suicide. FURTHER, she found out her husband had been having a long-term affair with his business partner at the garage he ran and had an eight-year-old kid from that relationship.
Via Daily Mail:
Struggling to pay the mortgage on the seven-bedroom B&B operation she also ran, she hit upon an idea to produce cannabis and sell it on.
The teacher, from Llandyrnog, near Denbigh, was handed a suspended sentence at Mold Crown Court earlier this year after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cannabis from the B&B business she rain with her husband.
Her son Michael McKay, 27, an Olympic boxing prospect, pleaded guilty to the same charge. Her husband also admitted conspiracy but on the basis he turned a blind eye to what others were doing and that he had no financial benefit from it.
Afterwards she said: ‘I must have had a breakdown because of what has been happening in my personal life and I have made a massive mistake. I am not a bad person.
‘I made a mistake and that’s it. I sincerely regret what’s happened and don’t know why I did it. I have never been in trouble before in my life.’
McKay pleaded with the court for leniency saying she wished to return to teaching in the future but since the offense was premeditated with he intent of making financial gain, a prohibition order was necessary to restore public confidence.
It sucks we live in a world where entrepreneurship is frowned upon. I’m in the market for a new dealer too.
P.S. $20 to anyone in the area who throws a pizza on her roof. I got Venmo.
[h/t Daily Mail]