SAXONBURG — As far as drug busts go, the one last week in Buffalo Township was an eye opener and jaw dropper, a veteran narcotics officer admitted.

“I was dumbfounded,” Trooper Jeff Brautigam of the state police Western Pennsylvania Drug Interdiction Unit said Wednesday.

Some of the uncovered stash: 64 pounds of high-grade marijuana and nearly $400,000 in currency.

The alleged source of the dope and loot: a grandmother less than two years away from Social Security’s full eligibility age.

The entire length of the investigation: three hours.

“If I ever write a book,” Brautigam said, “this one will go in it.”

Police arrested Candace D. Kelly, 64, following the unexpected discovery Sept. 26 at her mobile home on Kepple Road.

But on Wednesday, state prosecutors unexpectedly withdrew the felony drug case at the office of District Judge Sue Haggerty in Saxonburg, where Kelly was to have her preliminary hearing.

“It’s going to be an ongoing investigation,” state Deputy Attorney General Katherine Wymard of the office’s Drug Strike Force told Haggerty.

Wymard declined to say anything else about her decision or the case.

Brautigam didn’t shed much more light on the matter.

“The charges were withdrawn so that a further investigation into the defendant can be conducted,” he said after Wednesday’s court proceedings.

Asked if the move was part of a strategy to get Kelly to reveal her supplier, Brautigam only offered, “No comment.”

He also would not say if Kelly had agreed to speak to police as part of their continuing investigation. But he acknowledged that authorities could refile charges in the case.

Kelly’s attorney, Warner Mariani of Pittsburgh, did not return a telephone call Wednesday.

The defendant, meanwhile, who had been in Butler County Prison on $100,000 bail since her arrest Sept. 26, was released later Wednesday.

Chance investigation

A member of the drug interdiction squad for the past 14 years, Brautigam said he’s conducted scores of narcotics investigations, most of which have taken weeks and months, sometimes years.

Some involved controlled buys using informants and undercover officers, painstaking surveillance, wiretaps, or all of the above.

The case against Kelly used none of the above.

“People think we’ve been watching her for years,” Brautigam said. “Actually, this one took just three hours.”

On Sept. 26, while speaking to a source in an unrelated investigation, Kelly’s name came up.

“Personally, that was the first time I heard her name,” he said.

He gathered up several team members and officers with the attorney general’s drug task force and they drove to Kelly’s home.

Signed consentAs soon as Brautigam walked onto the front porch, his nose told him the source’s information was probably good.“There was a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the house,” he said.He knocked on the door and got an answer.“I think (Kelly) was very surprised that we showed up,” Brautigam said. “I think she was shell shocked.”Kelly’s husband, Roger, was outside and unaware police were there. Inside with the defendant was her 17-year-old granddaughter.Roger Kelly and two of the couple’s other five grandchildren during an interview Monday with the Butler Eagle criticized police conduct that day.The family claimed none of the six officers, most in plain clothes, identified himself. Not so, according to Brautigam.“I showed (Kelly) my identification and badge,” he said. “I always have my badge in my back pocket.”He also disputed any suggestion from the family that police, who did not have a search warrant, acted heavy handed in going into the house.Brautigam said Kelly invited him in. She apparently knew why they were there.“She said, ‘I’m done. Come in and I’ll show you,” he recounted. “I said, “Whoa, let’s go over consent.”The trooper said that he reviewed with Kelly the police waiver of Miranda rights and consent to search forms. The defendant, after donning her reading glasses, signed the forms, which allowed police to conduct the warrantless search.

‘A nice hit’Kelly led police to her bedroom, Brautigam said, and directed them to where she had freezer-dried packages of marijuana stuffed in luggage-style bags and about $40,000 in currency packed in boxes.“She showed us what she wanted to show us,” he recalled.But later, after taking Kelly back outside to the porch, he said, they found more drugs — two pounds of psychedelic mushrooms and three pounds of hashish — and much more money.In all, following an inventory examination, police seized $392,000. They also collected numerous marijuana pipes, scales and other contraband.“This was a nice hit,” Brautigam said.He described the marijuana as “high quality,” probably hydroponically grown from California.He explained that high-quality marijuana comes in really dense buds, while the fluffier form is usually less potent.Domestic cultivators of marijuana can produce highly potent plants indoors by manipulating temperatures, carbon dioxide levels and other environmental means, and through the selective breeding of more powerful cannabis strains.High-grade pot, like the kind Kelly had, Brautigam said, can fetch between $3,000 and $4,000 a pound, compared to about $500, give or take, for the weaker varieties imported from Mexico.While Brautigam said he did not know how Kelly allegedly acquired the marijuana, he did not rule out that it could have been delivered by mail.He said he did not know the extent of the network of which Kelly was allegedly involved.“I haven’t had the chance to further the investigation” since her arrest, he said.But the case is one for the books, Brautigam said.“It’s the whole picture,” he said. “Her age and the amount of money and weed. Plus, this was not a complicated or complex investigation.”And despite the findings, Brautigam said he believed Kelly was anything but a sophisticated player.“She was just a little old lady,” he said, “doing her thing.”