SECRET ROOM HID INTERESTING STUFF

For Openers, It Held About $500,000 Worth Of Marijuana Plants.

It had something to do with the pegboard.

What Eddie Harris and Jaeson Shepard died for, the reason Erin Van
Epps was shot at, and why police suspect Brad Fandrich took his own
life, was behind the pegboard in the basement.

Harris, Shepard and Van Epps drove to Brad and Jeanna Fandrich's home
on Highway N in the town of Argyle in March because, police believe,
they had heard marijuana was growing there, and they wanted to steal it.

But that morning, the police did not know why the three came to the
house. The surviving member of the trio, Van Epps, escaped in a
minivan. The surviving homeowner -- Jeanna Fandrich -- was sobbing in
the room where her husband had killed himself.

And deputies, who had just witnessed the suicide, were technically
off the case.

They discovered, after responding to Jeanna Fandrich's call, some
painkillers, elements of a possible marijuana-selling operation, and
weapons. But their searches stopped when he killed himself, and the
state Department of Criminal Investigations took over.

It was the curiosity of Jeanna Fandrich's uncle Steve Jones, of
Rewey, a small-town police chief, that led to the discovery of a
hidden room in the basement. Jones went to the house three days after
the shootings with other relatives to move some of his niece's things.

Outside the house, Jones said, he noticed "a couple of the electric
meters going around and around." But in the house, they found nothing
using much power. Then, "as we were moving stuff out, we happened
upon a couple of wires coming through the wall that didn't make any sense."

In the basement, he pondered the tool-filled pegboard on the wall
next to a workbench. "That wall never used to be there," said his
companion, another uncle.

The pegboard could be pulled back and clipped to the ceiling. Behind
it, they found a locked steel door.

State investigators returned, with another search warrant. Not until
then did they discover 497 marijuana plants, valued at $500,000,
along with 45 baggies of marijuana, measuring equipment, air filters,
grinders, tumblers, instruction manuals, plant food, grow lights and
ventilation fans. More weapons, ammunition and surveillance equipment
were added to the cache discovered two days earlier.

Fandrich was equipped to not only grow marijuana, but to detect
intruders and protect his investment.

Jones said he did not know his niece's husband very well, but "he
seemed like a real nice guy, at first."

A neighbor, Mary Erickson, said the couple did not invite contact.
During deer hunting season last year, she said, a friend went hunting
on land behind the Fandrich property. Brad Fandrich came out and sat
on the porch and shot, constantly, into the woods. When the hunters
left, he went back in the house, Erickson said.

Erickson said she spoke briefly with Jeanna Fandrich about a week
before the shootings. "She looked just terrible."

Jones said his niece "has become an entirely different person since
this happened. She looks good." He would not elaborate, except to say
"the truth will come out eventually."