SAN AUGUSTINE COUNTY, Texas — Deep East Texas officials, along with state and federal authorities, are investigating after a large marijuana grow was located in San Augustine County.
According to the San Augustine County Sheriff's Office, on Wednesday, July 29, prepared to take down a marijuana growing operation located on National Forest land off of Forest Service Road (FSR) 303 in southern in San Augustine County.
San Augustine County Sheriff Robert Cartwright says the marijuana grow site had been under investigation prior to the early morning raid. Sheriff Cartwright says a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Response Team (SRT) went into the site before daylight Wednesday morning to attempt to arrest two suspects who have been living at the grow site and taking care of the plants. The SRT team secured the site but the men ran away into a thick wooded area.
Sheriff Cartwright says K9 teams from the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) had been staged in the area in case they were needed to track any suspects.
The TDC dog teams began tracking the suspects just before daylight last Wednesday morning. They tracked mainly through the Bannister Wildlife Management Area headed north, running parallel with Farm-to-Market Road 705. The dogs tracked the suspect north until he got near State Highway 103. The suspect is believed to have crossed State Highway 147 near FSR 300, still heading west. Officials say the suspect continued heading west and crossed over FSR 301 where TDC dogs were released on the track. The dogs lost the suspects track near Johnson Creek, located near the intersection of SH 103 and FM 1277, about eight hours after they began the search.
A man matching the description of the second suspect was spotted by homeowners Thursday, July 30, afternoon on CR 319, about two miles north of Broaddus High School.
Sheriff Cartwright called in TDC tracking teams and a fixed wing plane from DPS that was equipped with thermal cameras.
Authorities tried to set up a perimeter around where a suspect was spotted until the TDC tracking teams arrived on location but the dogs were never able to pick up the trail of the suspect and the plane was not able to locate the suspect in the heavily forested area using the thermal camera. The search was abandoned Friday, July 31, after all leads were exhausted.
Officials inventoried items at the grow site, pulled up the marijuana plants and began cleaning up trash at the grow site. Sheriff Cartwright said officers pulled up 7,922 "rootballs" which can contained an average of three plants per rootball for an estimated total of more than 23,000 plants. The marijuana plants were airlifted out of the remote site by helicopter and taken to a secure area nearby where they were buried. The destruction of the plants was under the supervision of the U.S. Forest Service, the DEA and Sheriff Cartwright.
"Law enforcement officers are still combing through evidence left at the grow site by the suspects and will continue to investigate the case if additional leads are obtained," the SACSO said in a statement.