It was an elaborate operation, and the U.S. Postal Service was right in the middle of it.
“I was amazed. I was shocked,” neighbor Norma Williams said.
A couple of doors down from Williams was a weed operation she never knew existed.
“We’ve seen a lot of traffic, but we figured they were going for fish down here at the Catholic church,” Williams said.
Last month, Aurora police found Ferguson with 720 grams of marijuana in her apartment on Fifth Street.
They said her son shipped it to her from California.
“That’s all we need, a drug ring around this area. This is usually a quiet street to live on,” Williams said.
Police cracked the case after a concerned man called them with a tip.
They worked with the Postal Service to intercept a shipment addressed to “Grandma Stinker.”
“Sometimes it takes tips from quite a few people, and for the information to come in and kind of like putting a puzzle together,” Dearborn-Ohio County Prosecutor Lynn Deddens.
Ferguson shares her apartment with her daughter and granddaughter, police said.
Investigators said Ferguson had been receiving packages of weed in the mail for months.
“It’s coming from California and it’s going right back into my community, so we take that really serious,” Aurora Police Chief Josh Daughterty said.
Police said Ferguson told them she moved to Indiana last year and admitted to getting weed in the mail and sending money back to her son.
They said she told them she also bought meth with the money.
Investigators said Ferguson told them her daughter and granddaughter had no idea she was getting the packages.
She also told police she’d been arrested in Idaho in the past on charges linked to the delivery of meth.
Both Ferguson and her son, Eric Anderson, face a list of charges in this case, including corrupt business influence and conspiracy to deal marijuana in an amount over 30 grams but less than 10 pounds.
The prosecutor said a warrant has been issued for Anderson.
Once he’s arrested, she said he will be extradited to Indiana.
credit:wlwt.com
