A deputy with the Phelps County Sheriff’s Department arrested two men on Thursday after he discovered 105 pounds of marijuana stashed in the rear of their pickup truck.
William Patrick Taylor, 38, of Gaylord, Mich., and David L. Adams, 59, of Springfield, Ohio, were arrested without incident by Deputy Jamie Arnold after their vehicle was stopped for running through a stop sign at the Sugar Tree exit near Interstate 44.
Arnold said he became suspicious of both men when he began questioning them at the traffic stop.
Before Arnold stopped their 2000 Chevrolet Avalanche, he saw the car stop, after it ran through the stop sign, and witnessed the driver, Taylor, run behind the pickup truck in an attempt to switch places with the passenger, Adams.
Arnold said he asked the owner of the vehicle, Adams, for his consent to search.
The PCSD drug dog, Cesar, arrived at the scene shortly afterward and alerted the deputies that drugs were stashed in the secured bed of the truck.
Both Adams and Taylor claimed to have no knowledge of the marijuana in the truck, and said they didn’t know how it got there, according to Arnold.
After the arrest, the pickup truck was impounded and the case was turned over to Duty Detective Mark Leathers, who found an additional, six marijuana cigarettes in the front of the truck.
Sheriff Don Blankenship said a conservative estimate of the street value of the marijuana was approximately $262,500.
Both men had a total of approximately $1,200 in cash between them.
“We’ll let them keep their money,” Blankenship said.
However, if the arrest yields felony convictions, the truck would be forfeited, and the proceeds would go to the school system, under the Criminal Activity Forfeiture Act, explained Blankenship.
As an interesting aside, Deputy Arnold had just received training from Blankenship on the methods and tactics of drug interdiction, because he had never before worked on interdiction.
Also, Blankenship, who has trained several drug dogs in the past, is presently undertaking the training of a new dog.