BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Accusations of a stolen pot pipe and subsequent failed shooting attempt led police to a Bluff City trailer Wednesday night, where they happened upon 16 pounds of pot worth $16,000.
The story started two-and-a-half miles down Ryder Church Road, where deputies arrived at 10 p.m. to reports of a shooting, according to a Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office report. There, resident Steven Carr told deputies that a neighbor named Freddie Guy Wampler, 61, arrived in a green Nissan truck. Carr said when he walked up to the truck’s window, Wampler said, “you took my bowl,” referring to a marijuana bowl.
Carr replied that he did not have the bowl, according to the deputy’s report.
That’s when “Wampler put a rifle barrel out the window of the truck,” the report states.
Carr told the deputy he grabbed the .22-caliber rifle and pushed it away. Then Wampler shot three rounds before the truck’s unnamed passenger was able to grab the gun away, according to court records.
No one was hit.
Carr told officers that when “Wampler stopped shooting the gun, he hit Mr. Wampler in the face three times.” The Nissan truck backed out of the driveway and left.
Deputies drove to Wampler’s trailer down the street, on the 800 block of Ryder Church Road. There, Wampler admitted he’d been at Carr’s house to retrieve his stolen pot pipe, but claimed to have been unarmed, police said.
He gave authorities permission to search his residence for the gun. During that search, deputies found a room that contained some 16 marijuana plants that appeared to have been recently cut, along with grow lights, fertilizer, a watering system and other marijuana-growing accessories, according to court records.
Then they searched his truck, where they found a spent .22-caliber casing in the driver’s side floor board.
Police brought in a K-9 dog named Boro, who sniffed out a loaded .30-caliber rifle, boxes of .30- and .22-caliber ammunition and cut marijuana plants tucked into the woods surrounding the trailer, the affidavit states.
After police read Wampler his rights, he “stated that he had been growing marijuana for approximately a year for personal use and that he never sold it, he gave it away.” He also maintained that he did not have a rifle in the truck when he went to Carr’s home.
Wampler was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, manufacture of marijuana, felony possession of drug paraphernalia, maintaining a dwelling where narcotics are stored or sold and possession of a schedule six for resale.
He is being held at the Sullivan County Jail on a $100,000 bond, awaiting a hearing this morning.
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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