by P1 News Editor Lindsay Gebhart
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| Passaic Co. (NJ) SD Deputy Martin Elphick |
Last week, just one day after returning from drug interdiction training, Passaic Co. (NJ) SD Deputy Martin Elphick hit the jackpot. After making a simple traffic stop, Elphick used the interdiction skills he had just learned to uncover a $120,000 load of Heroin…just the kind of bust that sends shivers down drug runners’ spines.
“They almost had to use the deliberator on me,” an elated Elphick told Police1.
Not only did he find the smack, the suspect actually told him where to find it - there wasn’t even a K-9 unit involved.
The first thing Elphick noticed was a new Jeep headed east on I-80 driving in the slow lane doing exactly the 55 mph speed limit. When the driver spotted Elphick’s unit, he slowed down even further and moved into the left lane. That kind of overly cautious driving had “indicator” written all over and Elphrick knew it.
A temporary tag taped to the tinted back window was obstructed from Elphrick’s view so the deputy had what he needed next: a reason to make the stop.
Wisely, Elphrick immediately started looking beyond the relatively trivial tag violation and started looking for more.
As he began asking questions of 29-year-old, Antonie Matthews, and his girlfriend, who was driving because of Matthews’ suspended license, he watched the interdiction indicators start piling up.
First, they claimed they were driving from Cleveland to New York City for a three-day trip - but they didn’t have any luggage or hotel reservations.
Next, Elphick noticed eight unopened cans of the potent energy drink Red Bull. That’s enough to keep two people charged up for awhile, even though they were now just an hour from their final destination.
Elphick also spotted three cell phones, which seemed oddly “businesslike”.
With his curiosity piqued, Elphick started pressing, all the while watching closely for signs that the two were getting rattled.
No toothbrush?No underwear? How can you go to New York City without even a clean pair of underwear?
He separated the two and learned that the trip wasn’t exactly set in stone.
Both agreed they were going shopping (hence no luggage) but while the girlfriend said she didn’t even know where they were going shopping, Matthews said, quite definitively, that they were going to Chinatown to buy do-rags. One had no details on the trip whatsoever and the other had very specific details…another indicator.
Elphick, newly minted in the art of drug interdiction, knew something was up. He suspected the couple was on a drug run and he decided to confront that suspicion head-on.
In a calculated verbal play, Elphick hit Matthews with the simple but pithy statement, “I think you are going to go pick up,”
Matthews, without hesitation, denied it, which even further confirmed Elphick’s suspicion that this was not your everyday run-of-the-mill traveling couple. “The fact that he denied it meant he knew what [‘pick up’] meant.”
Elphrick knew odds were good that his trained instincts were on the money and he was dealing with a couple that was up to no good, but he couldn’t seem to get enough to hold them. He did smell marijuana but after the driver pulled an empty dime bag out of his pants and Elphrick subsequently searched the car, he came up with nothing else.
He didn’t have enough to nail them…yet…so he let them go and waited.
Three hours later Elphick spotted an identical Jeep heading in the opposite direction. This one, however, had what appeared to be a mounted back plate. “That couldn’t be the one,” he momentarily thought.
Then suddenly it struck him that maybe Matthews and his girlfriend had gotten smart and mounted the tag into a plate holder to avoid another pull-over.
Sure enough, the woman driver spotted Elphick and attempted to make a quick exit off the interstate, but Elphick, now sure this was his targeted Jeep, quickly found them.
What did they say they were doing this time…an hour outside of their destination and heading in the opposite direction?
“They said they were looking for a hotel,” Elphick said laughing.
Fully convinced that a bust was in the wind, Elphick took Matthews out and patted him down..
After Deputy Joe Zughbi arrived as back up, Elphick confronted Matthews.
“The first time I told him, ‘No clothes? No hotel? Doesn’t make any sense,” Elphick told Police1.
“Then I told him it was no accident I pulled him over again. I told him all these indicators add up. He wasn’t denying it.”
Breaking under the pressure, Matthews told Elphick that the woman was his baby’s mother and he didn’t want her to get arrested, too.
Armed with that leverage, Elphick made him a deal: “Tell me where the drugs are, and she won’t be.”
Matthews talked.
Reaching under the front seat, Elphick fished out a manila envelope stuffed with a storage bag of Heroin worth $120,000 on the street.
“It was a big shock. I tried to play it cool because I didn’t want to get him (Matthews) all riled up,” he said.
Elphick said he owes his bust to what he learned in the “Operation Pipeline” class he had taken over the weekend, sponsored by the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) and the DEA, which “really hit hard” on keeping an eye on driving behavior. He was also able to use carefully crafted interviewing techniques to get information quickly.
As for the Matthews courageously giving up the evidence so his girlfriend wouldn’t go to jail, Elphick had this to say:
“It was touching.”
