Five arrested, one wanted in Dudley Ave. drug bust - Parkersburg News

PARKERSBURG - Law enforcement officials said they made five arrests Thursday at a Dudley Avenue home involving a major heroin ring that is operating on both sides of the Ohio River.

Arrested were Marion Alonvo Felder, 29, 240 Richardson Drive, Upper Sandusky, Ohio; Zinia Wakefield, 27, 1122 Lynn St., Parkersburg; Daquarri Tamara Coats, 20, 2811 Dudley Ave., Parkersburg; Cordaro Robert Karl Johnson, 22, 6372 Staunton Turnpike, Davisville, W.Va., and Gerri Raye Parker, 29, 1704 19th St., Apt. B, Parkersburg.

Keith Irons, 23, 1415 40th St., Parkersburg, is still wanted.

Article Photos

Capt. Rick Woodyard of the Wood County Sheriff's Department confers with other officers at the scene of a drug bust at 2811 Dudley Ave. in Parkersburg Thursday afternoon. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

All were arraigned in Wood County Magistrate Court Thursday and confined. Felder failed to post a $600,000 bond, Wakefield failed to post a $200,000 bond, Coats failed to post a $200,000 bond, Johnson failed to post a $400,000 bond and Parker failed to post a $400,000 bond.

At around 3 p.m. officers from the Parkersburg Police, the Wood County Sheriff's Department and the Parkersburg/Wood County Narcotics Task Force had entered the home at 2811 Dudley Ave.

''We are culminating a Chicago, Illinois-Marietta, Ohio drug distribution organization investigation we have been conducting for several months,'' said Sgt. Greg Collins of the Parkersburg Police Department. ''We have begun our surveillance and arrest operations today."

One arrest was made at the residence and another made earlier in a traffic stop around Washington Avenue and Latrobe Street, Collins said.

''We have about 20 officers working right now on this operation,'' Collins said. ''This is a heroin investigation."

''This is a dangerous group that we have been dealing with. It is well established drug distribution organization and it is a lot of money we are dealing with.''

Local law-enforcement agencies have been working with the Washington County Major Crimes Task Force, the Parkersburg Narcotics Task Force, the Aggressive Crime Enforcement Task Force which was just recently started with this investigation being one of the first for that group.

''We have all worked together, on nearly a daily and nightly basis, for months,'' Collins said. ''This is culminating to where were are trying to get people put in jail.

''The investigation will not end today as there are still people we have to charge that we haven't yet. We are working on that pretty heavily right now and hope we can get those quickly. At this point, we believe this will be a federal drug case, hopefully within the coming days we will be making more arrests.''

Canine units were used in the seach of the home on Dudley, finding an undetermined amount of money and drugs.

''We have an amount of cash and a small amount of drugs found so far,'' Collins said.

''Our big push today was to arrest the targets, rather than what we might find. Right now, we are trying to take them out of circulation and get them off the street.''

''It is a major amount of heroin these people are putting on the streets throughout the Valley, on both sides of the river,'' Collins said.

Collins said there has been a lot of cooperation on this from agencies in both Wood and Washington counties.

''The river has not been a boundary,'' he said.''We worked together. It doesn't matter where they wanted to sell dope, we were able to work together and go on either side of the river and put this investigation together. "

''Since I have been a police officer, this has been the best cooperation I have ever seen between a lot of agencies. It took every bit of it, a lot of nights and time away from home, to get us to where we are today. I think it has worked out really well.''