When money confiscated by Shepherdstown police in a drug bust mysteriously vanished from police custody, everyone thought the case of the disappearing evidence would be solved quickly. More than three years later, the case remains unsolved—despite the fact that town officials agree on who is the suspect. Now, police chief Terry Bellomy says he is stepping up efforts solve the case. Finally, people who know the case are beginning to speak.
Money is seized
In February 21 2004, two men were arrested next to the Shepherdstown Library by Officer Roper of the Shepherdstown Police Department and Robert Houchins of Shepherd University Police. The two men were arrested for trying to sell cocaine and ecstasy and for carrying a loaded and concealed weapon.
Nearly $7,700 dollars was also found in the vehicle, along with a 38-caliber pistol and cell phones. This money was seized by Shepherdstown police. What happened next is a matter of dispute.
Charles “Charlie” Cole was Shepherdstown Chief of Police at the time of the arrest. According to Cole, the seized money was taken to the police station. Cole says he put the money in an evidence locker. “For us it was a large amount of money,” said Cole. “It was probably the largest [amount seized] while I was there.” Cole says that the money was put in an envelope with the case number noted on it. The envelope was stowed in a fire proof, two-drawer safe. “I know that it was there when I left [the department],” said Cole.
In January 2006, a Jefferson County magistrate ruled that the seized money be forfeited to the Corporation of Shepherdstown. Cole says that he had a conversation with Officer Reagan, who was by that time in charge of evidence, and that Reagan told him the seized money was still in the evidence locker at the time of the forfeiture. Cole added that the he had “no clue” what happened to the money after this point. “I’m going to speculate,” he said, “that they have searched everywhere, so I’m assuming somebody took it.”
Investigation
On July 20 2006, Shepherdstown Mayor Dom announced to the town’s police committee, which oversees the police department, that the money had disappeared from police custody. In a November 2007 interview with The Observer, Dom said that he heard about the missing money very early on in his administration. “It was the second week that I took office when Chief Curtis Keller called me down there and said ‘we have a problem.’” When asked when he thought the money had disappeared, Dom said, “Because of the chaos in the police department it could have happened anytime from two minutes from when I got the call all the way back to [former Chief of Police] Charlie Cole’s time.”
According to Dom, “No mayor knew about [the missing money] until I had just taken office.” This confirms former mayors Peter Wilson’s and Jim Auxer’s accounts that they knew nothing of the missing money until the announcement by Dom in July 2006.
In a letter to The Observer, Peter Wilson wrote: “No one I have talked to has knowledge of when the money disappeared from the police department. It was put there in evidence for a crime committed in February 2004, during the term of my predecessor, Jim Auxer. The money was confiscated by former patrolman Roper, since dismissed, and secured by former Chief Cole, who resigned abruptly early in my term.”
Cindy Cook was, at the time of Dom’s announcement about the disappearance of the money, a member of Shepherdstown’s police committee. She was also a magistrate for the Corporation of Shepherdstown. She said that when she heard about the money disappearing from police custody, she was stunned. “It was an awful lot of money to go missing.” Cook said she knew nothing about the missing money until Dom announced it. She explained, “Just because you sit on the police committee it doesn’t mean that you know everything going on at the police station.”
According to those involved, the investigation went nowhere fast. All of the people interviewed for this story confirmed that there was one person singled out as a suspect, but that the department was unable to secure enough evidence to justify a charge against him. Polygraph tests were discussed, but when the cost of running such tests for the entire department were assessed as too high, the polygraphs were abandoned.
In an interview with The Observer just before his departure from the police department, Keller said that by spring 2007 he had effectively closed the investigation into the missing money because the department was unable to gather enough evidence to charge against anyone.
The investigation starts over
In summer 2007 Dom pushed Keller out of office and appointed Terry Bellomy as the new police chief. In his first month on the job, Bellomy announced he would reopen the investigation into the missing money, “as if it happened yesterday.” In November, Bellomy confirmed that the investigation was still open. He said that he was unable to make a comment about the missing money or the case itself as the investigation was ongoing.
Former Chief Cole says he has not yet received a phone call from Bellomy regarding the investigation. Most of the police officers who were working at the time of the original drug bust are long gone from the department.
In his letter to The Observer, former mayor Wilson supports Chief Bellomy’s action. “Apparently Chief Bellomy has reopened the investigation, a decision I support, since felony corruption issues should never be, nor appear to be, swept under a carpet.”
