$1 million in drugs found inside house where Columbus man was killed in home invasion
Police searching the Upatoi house where intruders killed the resident’s son during a January home invasion found a smorgasbord of drugs with a combined street value of more than $1 million, an investigator said Tuesday in Columbus Recorder’s Court.
The special agent was testifying in the case against Autumn Lynn Tillery, the mother of 21-year-old Cross Henderson, who fatally was shot Jan. 19 as intruders looking for drugs invaded his mother’s home on Upatoi Ridge Drive.
Tillery, 37, was arrested Monday on multiple felony charges involving an array of drugs.
Besides marijuana and methamphetamine, she was accused of possessing with the intent to distribute two prescription drugs as well as LSD, a psychedelic commonly called “acid,” and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, according to jail records.
The two prescription pharmaceuticals were Pregabalin, a painkiller, and Dextroamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant, the records say. Tillery also was accused of possessing Oxycontin, another painkiller, and Alprazolam, which is used to treat panic disorders, but she was not alleged to have intended to distribute those drugs.
The agent, Ken Culverson, said homicide detectives probing Henderson’s death called in drug investigators after finding multiple substances they could not identify. The drug agents then got their own search warrant to collect the evidence against Tillery.
Testifying before Judge Julius Hunter, Culverson ran through a list of items, most of them marijuana-based, that he said police uncovered in their search:
- 5,621 grams of THC oil in mason jars.
- 1,110 grams of loose marijuana.
- 729 grams of THC wax, an extract.
- 654.8 grams of THC butter, in six butter sticks.
- 127.4 grams of THC oil that was not in mason jars.
- 3 grams of THC powder.
- 64 THC vape cartridges.
- 67 marijuana edibles.
- 489 doses of LSD.
- 8.8 grams of methamphetamine.
- 50 Dextroamphetamine pills
- 12 Pregabalin pills.
- 2 Oxycontin pills.
- One Alprazolam pill.
Culverson said police estimated the total street value of all the drugs at $1,031,235, though defense attorney Jennifer Dunlap thought that was inflated.
Besides the drugs, Culverson said police hauled out five large boxes of drug-related material such as packaging, cigar-wrapping for making marijuana “blunts” and other items.
The drugs and related material were scattered throughout the house, with most in the upstairs area of Tillery’s bedroom and bathroom, the agent said.
Judge Hunter ordered Tillery held without bond, though Dunlap said her client fears for her safety in the Muscogee County Jail, where her son’s alleged killers also are being held.
“I’m going to die in jail,” Tillery told the judge, weeping. She said she has been followed and threatened since her son was killed.
Authorities said she’s currently incarcerated alone in a holding cell, but can be transferred to another jail for her safety, if necessary.
The homicide
Tillery’s son was shot in the lower back Jan. 19 as a crew of home invaders forced their way into her home, holding Henderson and several friends at gunpoint and demanding that they “give it up,” police said.
The intruders first accosted Henderson and some guests in the home’s backyard, then ordered them inside, where one gunman separated Henderson from the others. That assailant shot Henderson from behind as Henderson yelled for his mother to call 911 and ran up the stairs toward her bedroom, investigators said.
Wounded, he crawled into his mother’s bedroom asking for help, and the intruders then moved the rest of their captives upstairs, demanding to know where Tillery kept a cache of drugs, police said. They left after bagging up what police described as “a large quantity of marijuana.”
Rushed to Piedmont Columbus Regional at 1:31 a.m., Henderson was pronounced dead there at 2:07 a.m., said Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.
On Jan. 22, police charged six suspects with murder in Henderson’s death: Anthony Foster, 23; Trevonuis Tyriq Williams, 22; Ceuion Marque English, 23; Laqwane Demarcus Kindred, 26; Mercedes Ann Marie Kraft, 17; and a girl, 16, who has not been identified because of her juvenile status.
Each had a record of some previous run-in with the law. English had been charged in a violent home invasion in 2015, but his charges in that case later were dropped as two codefendants pleaded guilty.
During a Jan. 28 preliminary hearing for the six suspects in Columbus Recorder’s Court, detectives testified some of the witnesses recognized English, who had attended Northside High School, where Henderson graduated in 2016.
Investigators said the suspects were associated with a gang called “FNG,” which targets drug dealers in robberies. While serving search warrants during the Jan. 22 arrests, police raiding Foster’s home on Conner Road found guns, ammunition, and marijuana packaged as Tillery had described that taken during the home invasion, police said.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 4:46 PM.