Canned beans, pellet rifles and sleeping areas for up to four people were found at the 2010 and 2012 marijuana growing camps in Pike County that state officials linked to Mexican organized crime.
Those previous discoveries are what have led some to speculate the still-unsolved execution-style killing of eight members of a Pike County family last month may have been drug cartel-related.
In both 2010 and 2012, the camps were abandoned so no one was arrested in either case, though thousands of marijuana plants were eradicated. Using Ohio public records law, this newspaper obtained the case files of the drug finds from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Records show that a flyover in August 2010 found nearly 23,000 plants off of Green Ridge Road and Zion Ridge Road, about 15 miles west of Piketon. Agents saw the plants from the air, but had to use ATVs to get to the site. They found well-organized, abandoned campsites with separate cooking, sleeping and working areas surrounded by trenches dug to channel water away.
Tents appeared to house two people each, and were stocked with food including tortillas, rice and Mexican canned beans. The only guns found were pellet rifles, along with knives and other tools for cutting and drying marijuana. Prescription pill bottles were found with names on them, but no one was at the site and no arrests were made.
In August 2012 another aerial operation found a similar, but much smaller, operation, this time on Hickson Run Road, 15 miles northeast of Piketon. Agents hiked hundreds of yards into the woods south of the road and found two campsites and multiple plots of marijuana totaling 1,200 plants.
Again there were tents with two cots each, pellet guns and frijoles. But there were no people, so no arrests were made.
Attorney General Mike DeWine in 2012 released a statement saying the grow operation had “suspected ties to a Mexican drug cartel,” though records of the investigations obtained this week did not mention cartels.
DeWine estimated the value of the plants at $1,000 to $1,500 apiece.
When questioned about these seizures in connection with the April 22 Rhoden family killings, DeWine demurred from calling the 2010 and 2012 cases cartel-related, but maintained they were linked to Mexican organized crime.
“The planting methods and encampment styles were similar to other Mexican grows seen in other parts of the country,” wrote AG’s office spokesman Jill DelGreco in an email when asked what linked the grow sites to Mexico.
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