PREBLE COUNTY — A drug bust in Eaton on Feb. 18 resulted in three arrests and the discovery of over 50 grams of suspected methamphetamine.
The Preble County Sheriff’s Office, with assistance from the Eaton Police Division, executed the narcotics search warrant on Thursday at 808 N. Barron St. in Eaton.
“Obviously, a lot of information sharing goes on between the two agencies,” Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson said. “And our detectives and road deputies, but specifically our detectives, did a good job following up on this and getting the information and the intelligence that we needed to get the search warrant.”
Along with the meth, investigators also recovered approximately 100 clear gel capsules containing suspected Fentanyl, approximately five grams of suspected cocaine and two loaded firearms in addition to $564. One of the firearms was stolen from Richmond, IN.
“With that comes a successful search warrant,” Simpson said. “When you look at the just the amount of fentanyl that we took off the street there – 100 gel caps, 100 unit doses – is fairly significant. And fentanyl is where we see a lot of our overdoses as well.”
Several items related to trafficking in drugs and drug use were also found.
All three adults were formally charged in Eaton Municipal Court on Friday, Feb. 19.
Buddy D. Fulton, age 37 of the above address, was charged with aggravated possession of drugs, possession of fentanyl, aggravated trafficking in drugs, having weapons under disability, receiving stolen property, possessing drug abuse instruments, illegal use or possession of drug paraphernalia and multiple firearm specifications.
According to the PCSO, Fulton is a convicted felon and is prohibited by law to possess a firearm. He has previous convictions for burglary, receiving stolen property, theft, multiple drug-related convictions and domestic violence.
Latricia M. Proctor, age 41 of Eaton, was charged with aggravated trafficking in drugs and complicity in the commission of an offense.
Cheyenne R. Skidmore, age 21 of West Alexandria, was charged with possessing drug abuse instruments.
“We’re trying to work together to get these street level dealers off the street,” Simpson said.
All three remain in the Preble County Jail at time of press, pending their initial appearance in court.
Simpson said it was a team effort between the PCSO and Eaton Police Division, and said that the two organizations are their to support each other and their operations.
“It’s information sharing and putting together something quickly when we determined that we had enough for the search warrant, and just the cooperation from Chief [Steve] Hurd and his people and our staff,” he said.
Simpson said he was proud of the work that detectives put into this case.
“Everything that they do, really,” he said. “But when you look at the West Alex search warrant and this one. These are significant. People that are selling significant amounts of drugs on the street to anybody that wants them so these are the people that we’re really after, the ones that are selling and profiting from the dope.
Beyond the cooperative work between the PCSO and Eaton Police Division, Simpson said it can take time to put these cases together.
“A lot of times these cases, don’t get solved or you don’t see any results quickly because they take time to develop information and get to the point where we can get a search warrant,” Simpson said. “I get frustrated. The public gets frustrated. We know they’re dealing drugs from this particular house but we’ve also got to build a case and we’ve also got to go through the proper channels to do what we need to do.
“The message would be that although you may not see something occurring it’s likely occurring behind the scenes and that case is being built behind the scenes, and sometimes we don’t have enough information to do what we need to do, but a lot of times and in this case, we did get enough information,” he said.
