IAPE Evidence Blog

Brat­tle­boro Reformer (Ver­mont)
BYLINE: By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff

Wind­ham County, VT

BRATTLEBORO — If you’ve been grow­ing a patch of mar­i­juana in the back­woods of Athens, the Wind­ham County Sheriff’s Depart­ment has your crop in the evi­dence room.

But if you plan on claim­ing it, you bet­ter do it before next week. That’s when the depart­ment plans to destroy the con­fis­cated weed. In case you don’t know who to call to reclaim your pot, Sgt. George Badgely left his busi­ness card at the spot where he pulled the plants out of the ground.

The sheriff’s depart­ment was noti­fied by hik­ers on July 15 that they had dis­cov­ered the mar­i­juana patch while out walk­ing in the woods.

Who­ever was grow­ing the mar­i­juana put a lot of effort into their labor, Badgely said.

“They couldn’t four-wheel to the actual plot,” he said.

Only a few plants were found, some of them more than six feet tall, he said, but it appeared the cul­ti­va­tors had spent some time find­ing the spot and get­ting it ready for their crop.

“They cut trees on a side hill,” located near a tum­bling brook, said Badgely.

He also said it looked like they had cleared another nearby plot and were get­ting ready to put more plants into the ground.

The area where the plants were found is very steep, he said, and the pot farm­ers had found one of the only flat spots in the area for their crop. They had even gir­dled a few trees in the area, as if they were get­ting ready to grow more plants in com­ing years.

For this small an amount of mar­i­juana, said Badgely, the grow­ers would have prob­a­bly only been cited for a mis­de­meanor. But because it was such a small plot, he doesn’t expect the sheriff’s depart­ment to spend too much time investigating.

Badgely, who has been a deputy since Sep­tem­ber 2008, retired from the Ver­mont State Police seven years ago. He was sta­tioned at the Rock­ing­ham bar­racks for 13 years. Fol­low­ing retire­ment, he worked for the Chester and Dover Police Depart­ment before he was hired to work with the sheriff’s department.

Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com, or 802 – 254-2311, ext. 273.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org