POT FOUND IN HOME WHERE FUGITIVE WAS FATALLY SHOT

Investigtors Say Man Was Growing It

RALEIGH - Wake County investigators continued to search a North
Raleigh home for drugs Saturday after a raid left a sheriff's deputy
shot and a federal fugitive dead.

Investigators have found more than two dozen marijuana plants inside
the Alpine Drive rental home, said Wake Alcohol Beverage Control law
enforcement chief Lew Nuckles. An informant had told Nuckles'
department that the man inside might be growing marijuana.

Stephen Scott Thornton, 45, of 5401 Alpine Drive was shot during an
exchange of gunfire after officers forced their way into the home
while attempting to search it, Sheriff Donnie Harrison said Friday night.

Investigators said Thornton, who was wanted in Texas and described as
"armed and dangerous," was going by the alias Scott Monaco; they did
not know how long he had been living at the home. He died at WakeMed
Raleigh Campus.

A deputy shot in the leg during the incident, Sgt. Ronnie Byrd, 37,
of the sheriff's Special Response Team, was treated and released from
the hospital. Harrison said it's not clear who shot whom. The State
Bureau of Investigation worked Saturday to figure out what happened
in the shootout.

Byrd and the sheriff's office were helping Wake ABC investigators
during the raid. Nuckles said his office received a tip about two
months ago from someone who thought marijuana was being grown inside
the home. Nuckles said his officers got a warrant for a search after
a two-month investigation. Neighbors said the owner, Diane B. Reeve
of Florida, has been renting it to different tenants in recent years.

The drug raid came to a halt as SBI agents searched the home for
evidence related to the shooting.

The late-morning shootings puzzled some residents in the
neighborhood, with its spacious split-level homes and expansive
lawns. Carmen Perry was taking down Christmas decorations when she
heard the gunshots.

"I'm surprised, then again I'm not," said Perry, 56. "You just don't
know what happens behind closed doors."

Perry said that before 9:15 a.m. she saw an unmarked white van
creeping down the street. She noticed the van, which turned out to be
part of the raid, because it was moving so slowly.

"I heard, 'Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop,' " Perry said. "We saw them taking
two people out. They both went out on stretchers."

Perry, her husband, Leon, and several other neighbors contacted
Friday said they had few dealings with Thornton. Several said they
were surprised to learn that anyone was living in the house, which
they had assumed was vacant because of the overgrown yard and lack of
traffic in and out of the home.

The Perrys met Thornton at a neighborhood Christmas party in 2006 but
did not recall seeing him the past two or three months. Thornton did
not appear to own a car, but they used to see him pedaling down the
street occasionally on a bike.

"He didn't strike me as a drug dealer or a drug user," said Leon
Perry said. "He stayed pretty much to himself."

Richard Walden, 71, and his wife have lived two houses down from 5401
Alpine Drive since Memorial Day weekend 1969. Walden realized his
cable Internet was out Friday morning when he noticed several Time
Warner cable vans -- different from the white vans that Carmen Perry
saw -- going down the street. So Walden stepped out to try to catch
the Time Warner trucks when he saw people waving him back.

"Then I heard someone screaming, 'Get away from me! Get off my
property!' " Walden said. "The next thing I heard was a banging
sound, like an aluminum ladder leaned up against a home." Walden now
assumes those were gunshots.

Three Time Warner technicians in the cable company's trucks were
doing routine maintenance work along the street when the raid took
place. The Time Warner vans or its technicians were not part of the
law enforcement's cover for the raid, said Brad Phillips, Time
Warner's vice president for government and public affairs.

"They just happened to be at the wrong place when it all came down,"
Phillips said.

The State Bureau of Investigation is handling the probe of the
shootings and searched the home Friday for related evidence. Thornton
was scheduled to be taken to the state Medical Examiner's office in
Chapel Hill for an autopsy.

Harrison said Friday afternoon that the drug raid was not yet completed.

"After the SBI finishes working the shooting, they'll turn it over to
Wake County ABC law enforcement, and they'll look for the drug
stuff," Harrison said.