CANADIAN COUNTY, Okla. – Pickles, intrepid drug dog of the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office, has done it again.
A bust on I-40 early Friday morning marks the latest in a string of cases where Canadian County deputies have sniffed out trouble on the highway with Pickles’ help.
Deputies pulled over Leslie Shevon Ray, a 30-year-old woman from South Carolina, early Friday morning, after she ran over a traffic cone.
“This was just a simple traffic stop,” Undersheriff Chris West, with the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office, said.
According to deputies, Ray told them she was driving from Amarillo and had been reaching for her phone. She said she had flown there to buy the RV after seeing it on Craigslist, deputies say.
“The conversation went in the direction that made him very suspicious of what she was up to,” West said.
A check on the vehicle didn’t match her story.
“He asked for a bill of sale, she gives it to him,” West said. “She bought it in Apache Junction, Arizona.”
Deputies also say that Ray tried to distract them during the stop by pulling down her low-cut shirt, a tactic they’ve been trained to be aware of.
Suspicious that Ray could be hiding more than just the truth about the vehicle’s origins, the deputies brought out Pickles.
After a thorough sniff, Pickles was on to something, and gave the alert to the presence of drugs.
Deputies searched the vehicle, and inside it, they found 34 bags of high grade, vacuum-sealed marijuana.
“Pickles, who is just one of nine canines I have at the Sheriff’s Office, has really proven his worth,” said Canadian County Sheriff, Randall Edwards. “This is the third find he’s made in just the past 30 days.”
“Pickles is a real good K-9. I think in the last six months, Pickles has detected I think eight different loads of drugs,” West said.
Friday’s haul was worth $300,000 on the streets.
After finding that Ray also has a felony record for trafficking the drug ecstasy, deputies arrested, booked and charged her with trafficking marijuana after a former conviction and possession of drug proceeds after a former conviction.
So let that be a warning, inter-state drug traffickers.
Pickles, and the deputies of the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office, are on to you.
“We’re going to keep the drugs off the streets but we’re going to put the criminal behind bars where she belongs,” West said.
