OUTSIDE COPS TO HELP IN DEPUTY, JAILER'S MARIJUANA CASE

Out-of-county investigators will probe whether a Cherokee County deputy and
jailer on paid leave after marijuana and drug paraphernalia were seized
from their home Thursday night will be charged with a crime, officials said
Monday.

Deputy Dusty Ryals and Jailer Lynn Trammel are under investigation for
allegedly smuggling drugs into the Cherokee County Jail, as well as
possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

District Attorney Richard Gray, chief prosecutor for Cherokee, Adair,
Wagoner and Sequoyah counties, said he is bringing in one of his
investigators from Wagoner County, Jim Jones, to investigate.

"We're going to try to get to the bottom of it," Gray said.

Cherokee County Sheriff Norman Fisher said he and Gray talked Monday and he
believes the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation also will be asked to
send in an investigator who does not normally work Cherokee County.

"They (Ryals and Trammel) are denying taking drugs into the jail," Fisher said.

The chief said Ryals also said the drugs found at the men's home were drugs
he took into evidence and that because the lock on his locker at work was
broken his supervisor had advised him to take them home in order not to
break the chain of custody.

Friday, Fisher said after talking to one of his investigators that he
understood Ryals and Trammel "were using it - I don't think they were
selling it."

Gray said one question to be answered is why the drugs, if they were
evidence, weren't left in the sheriff's evidence room.

Gray said the initial investigation also showed a trace of methamphetamine
on bongs - or water pipes - found in the home of Ryals and Trammel.

Ryals has worked as a deputy since January. Fisher said Trammel has been
employed four or five weeks.