Just off Ritchie Highway, customers can conveniently pull into the Severna Park Marketplace for groceries, brand name clothing or office supplies, but on Monday, a different kind of vendor set up shop in the parking lot dealing illicit products.
"Earlier this month, we received information from citizens who said that they became aware of this van travelling to different locations within the county and selling drugs out of their van,” said Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, “So investigators took this information and began looking for the vehicle, and yesterday about 7pm last night, they located the vehicle parked at a shopping center in the 500 block of Ritchie Highway in Severna Park."
While it may have seemed like a good idea to 33-year old Lindsey Alt and 26-year old Heather Beaver to sell drugs in such a public area, it must not have dawned on the alleged dealers from Pasadena that they were just as visible to law-abiding citizens.
Police began following the vehicle, and they would soon learn the two women behind the business also weren't too crafty when it came to concealing their stash.
"They made a traffic stop on the vehicle and were able to notice several items and paraphernalia in the vehicle,” said Limansky, “A search was conducted and heroin and crack cocaine, along with other pieces of paraphernalia used to distribute CDS were recovered."
Heroin, crack cocaine and powder cocaine in such quantities that it would be worth more than $10,000 on the street or in a shopping center lot for that matter.
Police say this case underscores the importance of people helping to police their own neighborhoods.
"Certainly we value information from the community so if you see anything suspicious such as this nature, contact us and we will put our detectives on the case and get these folks off the street," said Limansky.
One of the suspects had gone to the trouble of concealing less than half a gram of crack cocaine inside their under garments, but you guessed it---That didn't fool police either.
