FUGITIVE WAS MEDICAL MARIJUANA USER

A Man Who Was Fatally Shot in a North Raleigh Raid Claimed to Be a
Cancer Survivor Who Grew Pot to Help Others Manage Pain

RALEIGH - Stephen Scott Thornton vanished months before a judge was
expected to send him to federal prison for growing dozens of
marijuana plants in his suburban Texas home.

Unsuspecting Wake County officers stumbled upon Thornton's hiding
place Friday during a drug raid that left the 45-year-old federal
fugitive dead. A sheriff's deputy took a bullet in the leg; he was
recuperating at home Saturday.

A tip led Wake County Alcoholic Beverage Control investigators to
Thornton's North Raleigh home looking for marijuana plants, said Wake
ABC Chief Lew Nuckles. Investigators thought the mysterious man who
rented the home at 5401 Alpine Drive was a kingpin of some
moderate-level pot manufacturing ring. On Saturday, they found more
than two dozen plants inside, Nuckles said.

Investigators didn't know their raid would surprise a wanted man.
They knew next to nothing about him. No job, no friends, no family.
They'd been told he went by the name "Scott Monaco," but Nuckles
couldn't trace that to any documents like a driver's license,
property records or tax information.

"I was suspicious," Nuckles said of the two months of surveillance he
and other officers performed on Alpine Drive. "It's like his house
was shut up or something, completely different than any other house
in the neighborhood. We hardly ever saw anyone coming or going."

Federal court records and an on-line testimonial thought to be
written by Thornton help explain the stranger who found refuge in
Raleigh, in a quiet, friendly neighborhood filled with middle-class families.

By Thornton's telling, he was a cancer survivor who turned to
marijuana to ease his crippling chronic pain. In an essay posted on a
Web site "Texans for Medical Marijuana," a grassroots organization
that lobbied for legalizing the drug for pain management, Thornton
described his motivations for growing pot and his mounting legal woes.

"I have provided marijuana for other cancer patients over the years
and have literally saved the lives of many people," Thornton said. He
went on to complain about his imminent prison term and how it might
undermine his battle with cancer.

Caught in the Act

Thornton's brush with federal drug agents began by accident in
suburban Dallas in May 2005. Officers in the town of Wylie had rushed
to Thornton's quiet cul-de-sac to look for a gun that his next door
neighbor said Thornton had cocked in her direction, according to the
neighbor and a release from the Wylie Police Department in 2005.

The neighbor, Jennifer Wynne, said Thornton had become agitated that
day by her barking dogs. Wynne said by phone Saturday that Thornton
began throwing eggs and blocks of wood at her dogs. When her
stepfather confronted him, he opened his door, flashed a handgun and
cocked it in their direction.

Wynne said neighbors had always found Thornton a bit odd; he was a
single, middle-aged man who had built a house in a subdivision full
of young families. He collected antique cars, and neighbors rarely
saw him except when he came outside to wash and wax them, Wynne said.

Thornton's sudden eruption that evening in 2005 caught them all off
guard. So did the drug operation police found growing inside, Wynne said.

Police seized enough marijuana plants to fill four full-size trucks,
she said. Court filings show Thornton had 42 plants. Investigators
also took more than 4 kilograms of dried and cut pot which Thornton
later admitted in a plea deal that he meant to distribute, court
documents show.

Investigators also confiscated a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol,
according to court documents.

Federal agents eventually took over the case from local police. In
August 2005, Thornton pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a
firearm and possessing marijuana and marijuana plants with the intent
to distribute.

A judge agreed to let Thornton live under house arrest while he
awaited sentencing on the charges, court documents show. An
electronic monitoring bracelet was to keep tabs on him. Thornton was
to stay at home, except for biweekly volunteer sessions with a local
hospice organization, court documents show.

Thornton faced a sentence of as long as 15 years, though he could
have been spared with probation. Agents asked him to inform on the
people whom he supplied, Thornton said in his online essay. He
refused. Thornton said in his essay he expected to serve between two
to three years in federal prison.

Before that could happen, Thornton vanished. He left his home the
evening of Dec. 10, 2005, and never came back. Probation officers
hunted for him with no luck, according to court records.

Federal officials issued a warrant for his arrest and waited.

Wake County Sheriff's deputies came across it Friday, a spokeswoman
said, when they plugged Thornton's fingerprints into a national
criminal database.