
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992                   TAG: 9203190298
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN
DATELINE: IRONTO                                LENGTH: Medium

$2.5 MILLION IN POT DROPPED OFF I-81

Someone either got very nervous or very careless Wednesday morning and left about $2.5 million worth of marijuana at the Ironto rest stop on Interstate 81.

A truck driver who had pulled into the rest stop earlier to catch some sleep called the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department about 6:30 a.m. to complain that several large cardboard moving boxes had been dropped in front of his truck.

Several minutes later, Deputy Danny Stump arrived, opened the boxes and found they contained marijuana.

Lots of it, baled into 25- to 35-pound bundles and wrapped in plastic.

On each plastic wrapper were two numbers written in black ink. One apparently was a bale number and the other the weight of the bale, authorities said. The total was 750 pounds.

As deputies picked up the last box, they found a padlock with the key still in it.

"Evidently, they left in a hurry," said O.P. Ramsey Jr., an evidence technician and investigator with the sheriff's office.

Ramsey and Chief Deputy Roy Bolen believe this is the largest amount of processed marijuana ever found in the county. Bolen said the 750 pounds of marijuana has an estimated street value of $2.5 million.

"It would appear that someone got concerned" about being caught and dumped the load, Bolen said.

Authorities believe the dope was dropped between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Bolen said a state trooper had driven through the rest area about 5:30 a.m. and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

Bolen doesn't believe Montgomery County was the final stop for the marijuana. He thinks that whoever left the boxes behind was from out of the area and traveling to another destination.

Once the marijuana is processed by the forensics lab, a court order will be obtained to destroy all but a sample from each container, Bolen said.

Ramsey, the evidence technician, said that even though no one was caught red-handed, there's still hope. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which originated in California and has been used in Virginia for about two years, might allow authorities to track down the culprit.

If Ramsey can get a good print, it can be fed into the computer to see if it matches any on file.

by CNB