In the News

By Suzanne Ulbrich, Jacksonville Daily News

The Onslow County Sheriff said Monday that the more than 50 bottles of prescription medications found in Southwest Creek are possibly from a pharmacy break-in.

“The bottles will be processed for possible fingerprints belonging to a suspect(s),” Sheriff Ed Brown said. “It is a suspicion at this time the drugs may have been taken in a pharmacy breaking and entering.” 

Around 11:18 a.m. Saturday an angler who had gone fishing in Southwest Creek on U.S. 17 north delivered a large container filled with prescription drug bottles to the Onslow County Sheriff’s Department, Brown said. 

“The citizen told the dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Office he found the drugs on the creek bank where he went to fish and that there were other bottles floating in the water,” Brown said. 

He said First Sgt. Jeff Eason and CSI Sgt. Mitch Gordon collected the drugs and accompanied the fisherman to the creek to retrieve the other drugs still in the water.

Brown alerted Tess Sanders, the White Oak-New Riverkeeper, and she also assisted the sheriff’s office in retrieving the drugs from the water, Brown said.