Drug trafficking operation broken up in Murray

A drug trafficking operation was disrupted with a multi-agency search in Murray on Tuesday.

Around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, deputies from Calloway, Marshall, and McCracken Counties searched a home across the street from Westside Baptist Church’s Kingdom Kids school on Robin Court. What they found included large amounts of THC vaping devices, marijuana, firearms, digital scales, plus packaging and shipping material. Authorities said the combination of the firearms, the amount of drugs, and being near the school raised the level of risk to the community.

Detectives seized about 37 pounds of marijuana, a few hundred THC vape cartridges, 14 containers of THC wax, and two guns, one of which was described as an AK-47 style pistol.

The two people in the home, identified as 33-year-old Ronald T. Lewis of Murray and 28-year-old Shantel M. Hyte of Southaven, Mississippi, were arrested. Lewis was charged with enhanced trafficking in marijuana over 5 pounds, and trafficking in a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, and both of those charges are felonies. Lewis was booked into the Calloway County Detention Facility.

Hyte was charged with possession of marijuana. She was released after being cited.