RALEIGH - Stephen Scott Thornton vanished months before a judge was expected to send him to federal prison for growing dozens of marijuana plants in his suburban Texas home.
Unsuspecting Wake County officers stumbled upon Thornton's hiding place Friday during a drug raid that left the 45-year-old federal fugitive dead. A sheriff's deputy took a bullet in the leg; he was recuperating at home Saturday.
A tip led Wake County Alcoholic Beverage Control investigators to Thornton's North Raleigh home looking for marijuana plants, said Wake ABC Chief Lew Nuckles. Investigators thought the mysterious man who rented the home at 5401 Alpine Drive was a kingpin of some moderate-level pot manufacturing ring. On Saturday, they found more than two dozen plants inside, Nuckles said.
Investigators didn't know their raid would surprise a wanted man. They knew next to nothing about him. No job, no friends, no family. They'd been told he went by the name "Scott Monaco," but Nuckles couldn't trace that to any documents like a driver's license, property records or tax information.
"I was suspicious," Nuckles said of the two months of surveillance he and other officers performed on Alpine Drive. "It's like his house was shut up or something, completely different than any other house in the neighborhood. We hardly ever saw anyone coming or going."
Federal court records and an on-line testimonial thought to be written by Thornton help explain the stranger who found refuge in Raleigh, in a quiet, friendly neighborhood filled with middle-class families.
By Thornton's telling, he was a cancer survivor who turned to marijuana to ease his crippling chronic pain. In an essay posted on a Web site "Texans for Medical Marijuana," a grassroots organization that lobbied for legalizing the drug for pain management, Thornton described his motivations for growing pot and his mounting legal woes.
"I have provided marijuana for other cancer patients over the years and have literally saved the lives of many people," Thornton said. He went on to complain about his imminent prison term and how it might undermine his battle with cancer.
Caught in the act
Thornton's brush with federal drug agents began by accident in suburban Dallas in May 2005. Officers in the town of Wylie had rushed to Thornton's quiet cul-de-sac to look for a gun that his next door neighbor said Thornton had cocked in her direction, according to the neighbor and a release from the Wylie Police Department in 2005.
The neighbor, Jennifer Wynne, said Thornton had become agitated that day by her barking dogs. Wynne said by phone Saturday that Thornton began throwing eggs and blocks of wood at her dogs. When her stepfather confronted him, he opened his door, flashed a handgun and cocked it in their direction.
Wynne said neighbors had always found Thornton a bit odd; he was a single, middle-aged man who had built a house in a subdivision full of young families. He collected antique cars, and neighbors rarely saw him except when he came outside to wash and wax them, Wynne said.
Thornton's sudden eruption that evening in 2005 caught them all off guard. So did the drug operation police found growing inside, Wynne said.
Police seized enough marijuana plants to fill four full-size trucks, she said. Court filings show Thornton had 42 plants. Investigators also took more than 4 kilograms of dried and cut pot which Thornton later admitted in a plea deal that he meant to distribute, court documents show.
Investigators also confiscated a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, according to court documents.
Federal agents eventually took over the case from local police. In August 2005, Thornton pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a firearm and possessing marijuana and marijuana plants with the intent to distribute.
A judge agreed to let Thornton live under house arrest while he awaited sentencing on the charges, court documents show. An electronic monitoring bracelet was to keep tabs on him. Thornton was to stay at home, except for biweekly volunteer sessions with a local hospice organization, court documents show.
Thornton faced a sentence of as long as 15 years, though he could have been spared with probation. Agents asked him to inform on the people whom he supplied, Thornton said in his online essay. He refused. Thornton said in his essay he expected to serve between two to three years in federal prison.
Before that could happen, Thornton vanished. He left his home the evening of Dec. 10, 2005, and never came back. Probation officers hunted for him with no luck, according to court records.
Federal officials issued a warrant for his arrest and waited.
Wake County Sheriff's deputies came across it Friday, a spokeswoman said, when they plugged Thornton's fingerprints into a national criminal database.
(News researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.)
mandy.locke@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8927
News researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.
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Question
leafy
Fugitive was medical marijuana user
A man who was fatally shot in a North Raleigh raid claimed to be a cancer survivor who grew pot to help others manage pain
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/862909.html
Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Stephen Scott Thornton vanished months before a judge was expected to send him to federal prison for growing dozens of marijuana plants in his suburban Texas home.
Unsuspecting Wake County officers stumbled upon Thornton's hiding place Friday during a drug raid that left the 45-year-old federal fugitive dead. A sheriff's deputy took a bullet in the leg; he was recuperating at home Saturday.
A tip led Wake County Alcoholic Beverage Control investigators to Thornton's North Raleigh home looking for marijuana plants, said Wake ABC Chief Lew Nuckles. Investigators thought the mysterious man who rented the home at 5401 Alpine Drive was a kingpin of some moderate-level pot manufacturing ring. On Saturday, they found more than two dozen plants inside, Nuckles said.
Investigators didn't know their raid would surprise a wanted man. They knew next to nothing about him. No job, no friends, no family. They'd been told he went by the name "Scott Monaco," but Nuckles couldn't trace that to any documents like a driver's license, property records or tax information.
"I was suspicious," Nuckles said of the two months of surveillance he and other officers performed on Alpine Drive. "It's like his house was shut up or something, completely different than any other house in the neighborhood. We hardly ever saw anyone coming or going."
Federal court records and an on-line testimonial thought to be written by Thornton help explain the stranger who found refuge in Raleigh, in a quiet, friendly neighborhood filled with middle-class families.
By Thornton's telling, he was a cancer survivor who turned to marijuana to ease his crippling chronic pain. In an essay posted on a Web site "Texans for Medical Marijuana," a grassroots organization that lobbied for legalizing the drug for pain management, Thornton described his motivations for growing pot and his mounting legal woes.
"I have provided marijuana for other cancer patients over the years and have literally saved the lives of many people," Thornton said. He went on to complain about his imminent prison term and how it might undermine his battle with cancer.
Caught in the act
Thornton's brush with federal drug agents began by accident in suburban Dallas in May 2005. Officers in the town of Wylie had rushed to Thornton's quiet cul-de-sac to look for a gun that his next door neighbor said Thornton had cocked in her direction, according to the neighbor and a release from the Wylie Police Department in 2005.
The neighbor, Jennifer Wynne, said Thornton had become agitated that day by her barking dogs. Wynne said by phone Saturday that Thornton began throwing eggs and blocks of wood at her dogs. When her stepfather confronted him, he opened his door, flashed a handgun and cocked it in their direction.
Wynne said neighbors had always found Thornton a bit odd; he was a single, middle-aged man who had built a house in a subdivision full of young families. He collected antique cars, and neighbors rarely saw him except when he came outside to wash and wax them, Wynne said.
Thornton's sudden eruption that evening in 2005 caught them all off guard. So did the drug operation police found growing inside, Wynne said.
Police seized enough marijuana plants to fill four full-size trucks, she said. Court filings show Thornton had 42 plants. Investigators also took more than 4 kilograms of dried and cut pot which Thornton later admitted in a plea deal that he meant to distribute, court documents show.
Investigators also confiscated a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, according to court documents.
Federal agents eventually took over the case from local police. In August 2005, Thornton pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a firearm and possessing marijuana and marijuana plants with the intent to distribute.
A judge agreed to let Thornton live under house arrest while he awaited sentencing on the charges, court documents show. An electronic monitoring bracelet was to keep tabs on him. Thornton was to stay at home, except for biweekly volunteer sessions with a local hospice organization, court documents show.
Thornton faced a sentence of as long as 15 years, though he could have been spared with probation. Agents asked him to inform on the people whom he supplied, Thornton said in his online essay. He refused. Thornton said in his essay he expected to serve between two to three years in federal prison.
Before that could happen, Thornton vanished. He left his home the evening of Dec. 10, 2005, and never came back. Probation officers hunted for him with no luck, according to court records.
Federal officials issued a warrant for his arrest and waited.
Wake County Sheriff's deputies came across it Friday, a spokeswoman said, when they plugged Thornton's fingerprints into a national criminal database.
(News researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.)
mandy.locke@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8927
News researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this report.
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