Lady Luck#8217; aids drug arrest By Cal Bryant 12/16/2006 Editor AULANDER – Sometimes it#8217;s better to be lucky than good. Thanks to a bit of luck, a Lewiston-Woodville man is behind bars in the Be

Published 12:00 am Saturday, December 16, 2006

Editor

AULANDER – Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

Thanks to a bit of luck, a Lewiston-Woodville man is behind bars in the Bertie-Martin Regional Jail, charged with 18 felony counts of distributing crack cocaine.

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Yancey Earl Williams, 25, of 101 Connaritsa Road was arrested Dec. 12 by Aulander Police Chief Jimmy Barmer and Detective Sgt. Frank Timberlake of the Bertie County Sheriff’s Office.

Williams, the target of a four-month investigation stemming from community complaints regarding the alleged sale of illegal narcotics, faces six felony counts each of possession with intent to sell and deliver crack cocaine, the sell and delivery of crack cocaine and maintaining a vehicle to keep a controlled substance.

He was jailed under a $200,000 cash bond.

In addition, a Nissan 300-Z owned by Williams was seized by law enforcement officers.

What makes this particular drug arrest story different from others is how Barmer was able to locate Williams.

“We had the warrants in our possession for a few days and made several attempts to serve them at Mr. Williams’ place of residence, but we could never find him at home,” Barmer said. “We looked high and low for him at other places he was known to visit, but he was again nowhere to be found.”

On Dec. 12, Barmer was off-duty and on his way home from Greenville. While traveling on NC 11 in his personal vehicle, Barmer met a tractor-trailer driven by Williams.

“I knew he drove a truck for this particular trucking company and I knew it was him behind the wheel,” Barmer recalled. “Now my concern was how I was going to convince him to pull off the road.”

Enter a bit of lady luck.

Also traveling on that particular stretch of NC 11 was a North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper. To add to Barmer’s luck, Williams was apparently operating the rig at a speed greater than the posted limit as he watched the trooper perform a vehicle stop on the tractor-trailer.

“All I had to do at that point was pull up to the state trooper, identify myself and inform him of the arrest warrants we had on Mr. Williams,” Barmer said. “The trooper handcuffed Mr. Williams and detained him until I could get in touch with Frank.”

At that point, Barmer contacted Timberlake who, in turn, came to the scene of the traffic stop on NC 11. Now armed with the arrest warrants, Timberlake and Barmer took Williams into custody.

“Somebody once told me that a criminal has to be lucky each and every day, but a law enforcement officer only has to be lucky one day,” Barmer noted. “I guess that is true in this case.”

Barmer added that getting Williams off the street would make a big impact on drug trafficking in the local area.

“We were acting on numerous citizen complaints about his drug dealings,” Barmer said. “We thank those citizens for becoming involved in helping us rid our communities and our county of those who choose to spread this poison.”

Barmer also thanked Timberlake, Bertie Sheriff Greg Atkins and his staff and members of the Windsor Police Department for their help in seeing this investigation end in an arrest.

“We’re very fortunate to live in an area where different law enforcement agencies work so well together,” Barmer concluded. “Without all of these efforts, drugs would overrun our county.”