PRESTONSBURG - After deliberating for over four hours Monday night, a jury found accused robbers Adam Chaffins and Adam Jones guilty of first-degree robbery. On Tuesday, the jury recommended a 10-year sentence for each.

As previously reported, it was on Jan. 5 that three men burst into Family Drug Store in Wheelwright around 10 a.m., wearing black-hooded sweatshirts and cut pantyhose over their faces. As one suspect stood in the doorway waving a shotgun and ordering the five pharmacy workers into a back room, two accomplices with handguns helped herd the staff into the back area while the pharmacist agreed to give the men anything they wanted, netting the robbers approximately $500 in cash and two boxes of hydrocodone tablets estimated to be over 5,000 tablets.

While Jones was arrested not long after the robbery, an arrest warrant wasn't obtained for Chaffins until Jan. 17, prompting him to turn himself in after hearing rumors that police were searching for him. The third person involved in the robbery has not yet been discovered.

As the guilty verdict was read around 8:30 p.m. Monday evening, family members sat in tears, though neither boy appeared to show much emotion, according to Commonwealth's Attorney Brent Turner, who said he feels the verdict serves as an example.

“This verdict is just another indication of the decent people in this county who are sick and tired of drug dealers and pill heads endangering the community,” Turner said in an interview with The Times following the trial. “What these defendants did was terrorize innocent people and threaten lives just to get pills. The jury sent the message that they won't tolerate that.”

Due to the seriousness of the crime, each person would be forced to serve no less than 10 years and no more than 20, becoming eligible for parole after serving 85 percent of the sentence.

Before the jury's deliberation on sentencing, both Jones' wife and mother testified on his behalf and begged the jury to consider his moral and goodhearted personality.

“He wouldn't harm anyone,” said mother Kim Jones. “He's a good natured person and always has been.”

However, Joyce Little, a pharmacy clerk who had a shotgun stuck to her back as she was forced to lie on the floor during the robbery, feels the mother has been deceived.

“That mother did not see the side of him that I seen when he came in with a gun,” Little told The Times.

Even so, Jones' wife agreed with his mother.

“He's been the greatest husband you could ever have. He's my best friend,” Jones' wife of nearly a year, also named Kim Jones, told the jury. “I just want you to realize that if you take away 20 years of his life, you're taking away my life too. I want to be able to have a family with him.”

Despite the seriousness of the crime and the effect it will have and has had on their families, both men were reportedly laughing and joking as if nothing was wrong while being transported to and from the jail during the trial, which lasted over a week.

As Turner gave the jury his closing arguments, he argued that the witnesses knew what they were doing and were aware of the consequences.

“They knew the consequences of their actions. Otherwise they wouldn't have tried to cover it up,” Turner told the jury. “They made the decision on their own and must now be held accountable for their actions.”

After the robbery, miscellaneous items, including cutoff pantyhose, a tied bandana, a black glove and black hooded sweatshirts, were found tossed alongside a side road not far from the pharmacy. As Turner and Kentucky State Police Det. Eddie Crum testified, it was DNA evidence that linked Chaffins' skin to the glove and Jones to a hair that matched one found in the pantyhose.

As public defender Emma Jones gave closing remarks for Chaffins, she begged the jury through tears to consider his age, only 19, and the fact that he has no previous criminal record. However, her arguments were so interrupted by crying that she couldn't finish.

As attorney Jerry Patton spoke his final words to the jury on behalf of Adam Jones, he attributed Emma Jones' emotions to the fact that when you have clients who have been as good to you as the two boys had, it was easy to develop a sort of friendship and become emotionally involved. As Patton reinforced the facts to the jury that even with a 10 year sentence it would still be eight years and six months before Jones and Chaffins would become eligible for parole, and added that Jones' may not be able to survive a 20-year sentence and if he did, would be in his 40s before being released.

“Every day in jail is a living hell,” said Patton. “With the unhealthy lifestyle, violence and gangs, it is not likely that he could ever see daylight of freedom again.”

Despite the arguments, the jury deliberated for less than an hour and came back with a recommended sentence of 10 years for each defendant. However, Chaffins, who has been in jail since first arrested, will be given credit for time served. Jones was released on bond shortly after being arrested.

“I just can't say enough about this jury,” said Turner. “They were one of the sharpest groups I've ever seen. It was a complicated case and they understood the seriousness of it and asked excellent questions.”

For the owners and employees of the pharmacy, they're just glad it's all over, but do say they have and will be forever affected by the event, though they have found it in their hearts to forgive the boys.

“I've lived in fear every day,” said Little. “I've been scared to go to work, to go in my house, to even get out of my car. But as a Christian, I've found in my heart to forgive them, I had to.”

As the pharmacy was reopened the afternoon of the robbery, owner Sherry Goeing says she now feels safer there because of the work of both Turner and Crum.

“I honestly believe that we would be out of business if they were found not guilty, because we would have been robbed so much,” said Goeing, who says a part of her does sympathize with the family. “If that had been my child up there, I would have died when they said guilty.”

A final sentencing will be held Dec. 14 at 1 p.m.