Boone County deputies have busted a marijuana-growing operation and arrested two people. Sheriff Ron Fehr says they’d been watching the operation for nearly a year before getting a warrant Monday. Fehr says they expected to find “some type of a grow operation” but not so many plants — 200 of them them in all, in various stages of processing and several pounds ready to sell. There were seeds, seedlings…everything a greenhouse operator would have on hand for a commercial crop, the sheriff says. The suspects had bought the old farmhouse in June of 2003. He describes it as a “typical farm place” with a couple upstairs bedrooms, one downstairs, a living room — and everything, even the closets, filled with marijuana plants — reflective walls, floors painted white, grow-lights even in the basement with a whole new batch of seedlings being prepared. Sheriff Fehr says he doesn’t think the suspects had been in business for a very long time. He says they’ve really put some time and thought into the operation, which was clearly not spur-of-the-moment. The suspects apparently even had Federal Express deliver supplies like tubing, and timers to deliver water and fertilizer to the crop at proper times. He adds “It was pretty elaborate.” 22-year-old Ivan Erickson and 22-year-old Sarah Lynn are both charged with manufacturing and possessing marijuana and mushrooms, intent to deliver, and failing to possess tax stamps.
