DYING STAB VICTIM LIES TO POLICE TO HIDE TRUTH OF MARIJUANA FARM IN LOXAHATCHEE

Miami-area man, 43, lay dying from stab wounds in a hospital early
Sunday morning when he told Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office
investigators the truth: He wasn't stabbed in a fight at a
restaurant, but outside a house in Loxahatchee.

As detectives later determined, the man may have been lying for a
reason: More than 100 marijuana plants were found growing inside the
same house in the 16700 block of 73rd Court North, along with an
elaborate lighting system thought to help grow the plants.

"He didn't want us to come to that house," sheriff's spokesman Paul
Miller said. "This was a sophisticated marijuana operation."

The man died at 7:55 a.m. at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm
Beach. His name was not released pending notification of family.

He was found bleeding from stab wounds to the neck in the car of a
woman who flagged down a sheriff's deputy shortly after midnight on
Seminole Pratt Whitney Road. The woman told investigators she lives
in the Miami area and was in Palm Beach County on a date when she
came upon the stabbed man on the roadside.

At the time, the man told sheriff's officials he got into a fight at
a nearby restaurant and stumbled out into the street, Miller said. He
was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where he admitted to being
stabbed outside the Loxahatchee house. He would not say who stabbed him.

When detectives came to the home, they found the woman who lived
there with three children gone, Miller said. But left behind were
marijuana plants growing in the garages, with a street value of
hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.

"The people living there picked up fast and left," Miller said.
"There was a major conspiracy in there."

The woman and her children moved around November into the house with
a wide lot on a dirt road, where her children often played outside
and often left their toys scattered in the front lawn, officials
said. That woman is not the same woman who flagged down the deputy.

Neighbors didn't see anything out of the ordinary about the family,
other than the occasional loud music blaring from the house, said
Jason Mercer, who lives two houses away. People driving a
Mercedes-Benz and a Hummer would occasionally show up.

Still, "there was nothing to raise red flags, at least with me," Mercer said.

Late Saturday night, though, neighbors heard arguing outside the
house around the time investigators think the man was stabbed.

Authorities found the woman from the house late Sunday evening and
questioned her about the stabbing and the marijuana operation, Miller
said. Detectives also are looking for a Chrysler Sebring that
belonged to the man who was killed.

They also are investigating how the stabbed man ended up in the car
of the woman who flagged down the deputy, Miller said.