It's unclear where John Demorest was driving Saturday, but the Connecticut man's ride up I-95 through Maryland was cut short around 5PM after he caught the eye of a Maryland State Police trooper.
"Noticed a vehicle he thought was speeding," said Maryland State Police 1st Sgt. Edward Luers.
He was going 74 miles per hour in a 65 miles per hour zone northbound near White Marsh.
The rented mini-van was pulled over, but officials say the way the 67-year-old was acting raised red flags for the trooper.
"He advised that he was making a one-day trip, the rental agreement said that the vehicle could not leave the state of Connecticut, so there's one thing,” Luers said. “Didn't want to make eye contact with the trooper, just various questions did not match the answers to what the trooper was asking him."
Suspicious of Demorest, the trooper called for back-up. Then he took his K9 to sniff around the van for drugs. The dog alerted that he picked something up, so the trooper searched the entire van. In the back, under a blanket, the trooper found black five trash bags, fully loaded with marijuana.
It weighed in at 124 pounds. That amount of pot could get about $620,000 on the streets.
"This is not something that he is gonna go home and smoke as personal use, this is something he's gonna distribute out into the public," said Luers.
Demorest now faces five charges including felony possession of marijuana, intent to distribute and drug kingpin. He is being held at the Baltimore County Center on $1,000,000 bond. Another mule taken off the I-95 drug corridor.
"This is what we do every day,” Luers said. “We're not just out there stopping people for speeding or wearing seat belts, we're out there looking for these criminals."
And Saturday, that vigilance paid off.
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