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Arrest; fiery car crash: connected?

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SALINE CO.—A man well-known in Harrisburg for his long-alleged connection to those in the drug world has been arrested on serious charges; and within two weeks, a car crash involving two Carrier Mills residents prompted connections to be made among the three.

Allegations surfaced almost immediately of a deeply-hidden connection with Rodney Marcum after Cortez Ellis, driving at a high rate of speed and reportedly with an active meth lab in the car, crashed on Old Route 13 on Friday, November 9, injuring himself and leaving the passenger, Tiffanie Blair Thompson, in very serious condition.

How the group is allegedly connected comes as a matter of information from people who have known Marcum, Ellis and Thompson for a long time, and report that their doings are going largely unnoticed by the law, despite this most recent outbreak in alleged criminality and dangerous behavior.

First, Marcum

Police reports on file indicate that on Oct. 28, 2012, Harrisburg Officer Bobby Ragsdale began investigating a criminal damage to property, burglary and theft complaint from Clarence Rice in the 500 block of West Lincoln. Items had been stolen from Rice’s garage, and Ragsdale had him make an inventory of those stolen items.

But while going through the garage, Rice’s wife located a Saline County court summons with the name Angelina S. Fonseca on it and West South Street, Harrisburg, address.

Sgt. James “Whipper” Johnson picked up the summons from the Rice residence and was shown the garage and the location where the summons was found. Rice also described some of the items stolen, including an old cardboard barrel that had come from his dry cleaner business that had held dry chemicals at one time; a similar barrel had been stolen during the burglary.

When Johnson drove to the address on the summons, he saw there a cardboard barrel sitting between the residence and alley. Looking inside, he observed a white trash bag with writing on it in permanent ink reading “C Rice long sleeve shirts.”

The barrel ‘just showed up’

Johnson noted in his report that Rodney Marcum, 36, was sitting in the cab of a red pickup next to the barrel.

Johnson advised Marcum of the stolen barrel; Marcum, in return, said he didn’t know anything about it; “it had just showed up next to his door.”

Johnson asked Marcum to step from the vehicle, place his hands on the bed of the truck and stay so he could be patted down, which Johnson conducted, despite Marcum continuing to remove his hands from the truck. In response to this, Johnson cuffed Marcum, telling him he wasn’t under arrest, but Johnson didn’t feel comfortable with his actions.

While speaking with Marcum, Johnson reported that he observed three Stihl power tools in the bed of the truck: a chainsaw, a leaf blower and a brush cutter/weed eater. Johnson asked Marcum if those tools were his; Marcum replied that he’d purchased all three at the Swap Shop from Curt Wollesen approximately six weeks before.

Johnson began contacting other officers about stolen power tools he was aware had been reported previously, dating back to a break-in in May of 2012. Detective Curt Hustedde came to the scene and began speaking with Marcum, who was advised that he wasn’t under arrest and was taken out of handcuffs. Fonseca then arrived and, being asked about the power tools, said that the chainsaw belonged to Marcum’s father, and that she and Marcum owned the other two, with the weed eater having been traded to Rodney for a “tuck point job” and that they’d had it all season.

Differing stories

When Johnson told Fonseca that her babydaddy had given a different account of how they came to have the power tools, she then said they’d been out going through dumpsters (dumpster diving) and had “found the cardboard barrel somewhere near West Side school.”

After having been told different stories about the cardboard barrel and power tools, Johnson decided to have dispatch run the tools and see if they’d been reported stolen.

The leaf blower had been reported stolen from Wayne Hale; the weed eater from John Lane. These were taken in as evidence, and officer Brent Davis came to collect the barrel. All were taken to the police station and inventoried for evidence lockup.

Johnson then advised Hustedde that probable cause existed to jail Marcum for possession of stolen property.

Rolling pills

After being questioned at the PD by Hustedde, Davis called the jail to “send someone up to take custody of Marcum.

COs Craig Gunning and Jill Moore arrived, and Davis unlocked the interview room door to let Marcum out.

“Once he stood up, I heard something fall from his person,” Davis wrote in his report. “I looked down on the floor and seen a peach colored pill rolling across the floor.”

Davis reported there was another pill underneath the chair Marcum was sitting in.

“I asked Marcum what these were and he stated ‘I don’t know,’” Davis reported, “and asked if I dropped them.”

Davis asked Marcum if he had anything else on him because “once you take it downstairs, it’s another charge.” Marcum told Davis there was not, and was released to the jail staff.

Davis reported that the two pills were identical, peach colored oval pills with 3605 stamped on them.

He identified them as Lortabs, a schedule 3 controlled substance.

Marcum, being held on the stolen property charge, was now under suspicion of a drug felony.

Marcum was formally charged on Oct. 30 with Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance, hydrocodone, a Class 4 felony, and a single count of misdemeanor Theft for the three power tools which totaled less than $500.

Fonseca bonded him out on that day with $2,500.

He’s scheduled for a first appearance on both counts Nov. 26.

The tie-in to the drug community

Marcum was tied in with former recreational cocaine user Tim Monroe during Monroe’s 2010 cocaine trafficking trial in Saline County that created a sensation because Monroe was brought up on felony charges for having .06 grams of cocaine on his person, while he was openly claiming that Marcum was his dealer and had “bricks” of cocaine.

Monroe’s issue became more sensational when he tried to tie in Saline County State’s Attorney Mike Henshaw with Marcum in some fashion.

However, it could never be proven that Marcum had anything to do with Henshaw beyond doing some masonry (brickwork) to Henshaw’s house in Harrisburg.

Monroe was convicted and sentenced to four years probation; he seems to have been pretty much reformed in that amount of time.

Yet rumors about Marcum continuing to run in drug circles prevailed, and were especially enhanced when his brother-in-law, Arnulfo Fonseca, was finally sent to prison over incidents occurring on the night Fonseca’s babymomma, Ashleigh Miller, died while she was with him (Fonseca was exonerated in her death, but attendant charges, including DUI, were filed against him and he entered a plea, resulting in his prison time. But on the night in question, the two were around known cocaine dealers in Carrier Mills.)

And those rumors surfaced again, insistently this time, when Cortez Ellis crashed his vehicle on Old Route 13 Nov. 9.

Cortez & Tiff

Sources indicate that on that night, both Ellis and his girlfriend, Tiffanie Thompson, both of Carrier Mills, were inebriated and traveling along 13 when a cop spotted them and began pursuit.

Ellis, 30 and a felon since at least 2001 (on an Aggravated Battery charge), had a failure to appear notice on a minor traffic infraction at the time the officer gave chase.

Thompson, 20, has no criminal history of which to speak, but has been known to have hung with the wrong crowd for years—including Marcum.

According to sources close to the investigation, there was an alleged active meth lab in the trunk of the car.

When the cop began pursuing them, speeds reached close to 100 mph.

Ellis is reported to have lost control of the car and it left the highway, slamming into a tree. The car exploded and flames engulfed it.

Ellis was observed leaving the wreckage and attempting to run into the nearby woods, although he was injured fairly severely and didn’t get very far or very fast.

Thompson, still in the vehicle, was suffering smoke inhalation and left in the vehicle by passersby, who are said to have pulled the meth lab from the trunk, but ignored Thompson. Disclosure has the names of the two who did this, then left, but is holding the information pending verification by official sources.

Serious injuries

According to police reports, Ellis was found in the woods, collapsed, and was taken by ambulance to Harrisburg Medical Center.

Thompson had been pulled from the wreckage by passers-by unknown (NOT the same people who removed the alleged meth lab) after she was able to regain consciousness temporarily and crawl toward the window.

She was suffering smoke inhalation, as well as several broken ribs, a broken arm, and significant internal injuries. She too was taken to HMC; both were then flown by medical helicopter to Deaconess in Evansville. While there, it was discovered that she had also been rendered blind by some aspect of the wreck, although whether it was the fire, lack of oxygen, impact or some other cause remains unknown as of press time.

The people who removed the alleged meth lab were magnanimous enough to go advise Thompson’s grandmother of the wreck, which is how the family was notified initially.

Ellis was believed to have suffered some internal injuries too; but was up the next day, sitting in bed and talking to friends, according to those at the hospital who observed it.

After initial blood draws were done, it was reported that his BAC at the time he was brought in was .21, nearly three times the legal limit.

Officials have indicated that numerous charges are pending against both when they are released from the hospital; Thompson had surgery for bleeding in the abdomen the day after admission, so her release date may be late.

Buffered and protected

These same sources are the ones who connected the dots between Marcum and the victims of the car crash.

“Marcum has destroyed that town,” said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for the lives of people who speak out against him. “He is mean. He was always mean, even as a kid. His mom was a social worker and a foster mom, and she was mean to the foster kids she took in.”

The source indicated that Thompson “is a con; she gets out of everything with the cops” and says that even given Thompson’s young age, she has been in deep with the same crowd as Ellis and Marcum for a number of years, having talked at length, in her naiveté, about the drug dealings of that entire circle, which, she has said, is massive and encompasses more people in Saline and surrounding counties than can even be imagined.

The source advised that Thompson, who had a baby earlier this year, was being watched carefully by the drug hoodlums she was running with, and they even came to the hospital while she was there after having the baby, to keep an eye on her and watch where she went when she was discharged.

The hierarchy of this drug world, says the source, isn’t clear, but the source is of the belief that it extends far beyond Marcum, which explains why he’s been so buffered and protected all these years, and why, despite testimony the likes of which came out in the Monroe trial, he has continued unscathed in the legal world….until this recent arrest.

Whether it will continue, now that there’s been a bust and a significant incident involving those allegedly connected to him, remains to be seen.


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