Authorities have yet to charge a suspect in a shootout at a rural farm house about five miles east of Coffey that left two Hispanic males dead, uncovered one of the largest marijuana operations discovered to date in the area, and provoked a massive manhunt in Daviess County.
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According to Daviess County Sheriff Kevin Heldenbrand, his office received a phone call at about 12:30 on Wednesday, Sept. 6, from the Doug Roberts residence. They’d heard shots at a neighbor’s house and at first thought it was fireworks. One stray bullet actually went inside their house and another bullet hit on the outside. They saw two men run by who asked that they call the police and they then called 9-1-1 to report it.
Within minutes, the sheriff arrived at the scene located east of Coffey on Hwy. UU about a mile south of the intersection at B Hwy., to discover two Hispanic males deceased, lying in the yard.
The two slain men were later identified as Pedro M. Coralez, 38, of Hialeah, Fla., and Arnaldo Valdez, 39, of Miami.
The sheriff said the investigation revealed that several rounds of shots were fired by several different types of weapons indicating a shootout of some sort took place at the farm site.
The sheriff said there were possibly two Hispanic males who fled the scene on foot and might still be in the area. Two men were seen by witnesses running to the east. According only to the tracks and a blood trail, a third man may have gone north up the road a little ways, then east into the brush.
“One fleeing suspect was definitely bleeding,” the sheriff said. “We don’t know if he was shot or if he was caught in a barbed wire fence.”
He said witnesses had reported that the men “had nothing in their hands” and described them as “apparently only wanting to get away.”
He said witnesses also reported seeing as many as five or six men leaving the scene in a green Ford pickup and others in a white Ford Explorer and a green Ford Explorer.
Sheriff Heldenbrand said he considered the men “highly dangerous, from what I’ve seen.”
A manhunt included multiple area sheriffs’ departments, the Missouri Highway Patrol and other agencies, and involved some 200 officers. Helicopters, an airplane and ATVs were used in the search. Three or four efforts with dogs were made to try to track the men, including cadaver dogs. No other bodies were found.
A stash of shotguns and automatic weapons was found inside the house, which court records would later list as two 12-gauge shotguns, one 20-gauge shotgun, two Marlin rifles, a 7.62 Simonov or SKS rifle, a Leland semi-automatic pistol and a .38 revolver.
Sheriff Heldenbrand said he believed the killings were probably “drug related” as officers found a large marijuana operation involving a couple of acres of plants inside a corn field. He added that the crime scene was extensive, involving at least 20 acres and the homicide investigation was being documented by the Northwest Missouri Major Case Squad with assistance from the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the St. Joseph Police Department’s Crime Scene Investigation unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
By Thursday, the sheriff said he doubted the two men who had fled the scene on foot the day before were still hiding out in the area.
“It’s very unlikely,” he said. “They’ve got cell phones. They got rides. They’ve had plenty of time to get out.”
Still, when no suspect was captured despite the intense manhunt, rumors swirled in the small community of Coffey and throughout the rural area about sightings of a wounded man.
“We searched lots of grain bins, lots of old houses,” the sheriff said. “Nobody has ever been found to my knowledge.”
He said none of the suspects or victims had a history from Daviess County.
About 70 officers remained on hand to continue the investigation into the drug operation Thursday. The marijuana field was the largest the sheriff had seen thus far in his time in office.
“It’s huge,” he said.
There were between 3,500 and 4,500 plants valued at $1,200 per pound with each plant equaling about a pound, coming out to over $5 million dollars.
Officers discovered bags of Miracle Grow and water hoses leading down to the marijuana plants. There was a camouflage tent inside the field and a deer stand for a lookout.
“They grew great marijuana,” Sheriff Heldenbrand said. “However, the field surrounding it was sown in sweet corn, which only gets about five feet tall. The marijuana plants were easily 12 foot. Field corn would have grown 12 to15 feet and done a better job of hiding the plants.”
The marijuana plants were piled up, burned and buried.
Weapons found inside the house and numerous tracks around the grounds led officers to drain two ponds “in order to leave nothing unturned.” The ponds were left to dry out and nothing was found in them.
On Friday, the investigation into the marijuana field had been turned over to the US Attorney’s office in Kansas City.
Only one man has been charged in connection with the marijuana operation. Federal officials on Friday charged Jhanmay Molina-Perez, 27, of Jameson, in a federal complaint with growing 1,000 or more marijuana plants, said Bradley J. Schlozman, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. If convicted of the drug charges, he faces a maximum of life in prison and a $4 million fine.
Sheriff Heldenbrand said he remained in charge of the homicide investigation, as the lead agency, though many other law enforcement agencies would continue cooperating with local authorities. Those agencies include the U.S. Attorney’s office, the F.B.I., the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Northwest Missouri Interagency Team Response Operation (NITRO).
Sheriff Heldenbrand said about six weeks ago a neighbor had called in about “the large number of Hispanic occupants.”
He said 10 to 15 Hispanics had been living on the property. The sheriff said when he talked to farmers in the neighborhood they thought the men were probably working on the hog farms in the area, which was not unusual. People in the area had said the men “weren’t hurting anybody and were low profile, low key.”
For humanitarian reasons, Sheriff Heldenbrand took seven horses from the farm site. The horses were destroying evidence walking around. The ponds had been drained so they had no place to drink and there was not enough feed at the farm to sustain the animals. There was nobody to take care of them.
“Normally, I’d ask the neighbors to do it. In this case that wouldn’t be appropriate,” he said.
No one has been charged in connection with the slayings, but Sheriff Heldenbrand said investigators were pursuing “lots of leads” and he believed the murder case would be solved.