House fire leads to large amount of narcotics, money

TATUM – Our news partners at KETK say that while responding to a Tatum house fire Sunday evening, authorities found “a very large amount of illegal narcotics,” thousands of dollars and several postal boxes. According to the Tatum Police Department, at around 5:30 p.m. officers were called to help with a house fire in the city. When officers arrived they found a truck blocking the entrance to the property so they had to jump in and move it to allow the fire department access since no one was around, officials said. Once inside the property, responders worked on putting out the house fire before it reached a travel trailer right next door. “Our officers and our handy dandy volunteer firefighters were on top of the situation and although the fire burned underneath the trailer they got it put out and saved the travel trailer,” the police department said. Officials entered the trailer as part of a thorough investigation to make sure the trailer was not on fire and discovered several illegal items. “A very large amount of illegal narcotics, a very large amount of U.S. postal boxes, and post office packaging boxes,” the police department said. “A large amount of THC wax, packaged mushrooms, a large amount of vapes, not the kind that you can legally buy down at the store, and several thousands of dollars in bundles.”

The department said on top of the narcotics found, suspected marijuana was found too.

According to Tatum PD, the homeowner, identified as Alexander Clark, drove up in the midst of everything going on and was shocked.

After a short conversation and investigation, the police department said an officer placed Clark under arrest and took him to the Henderson County Jail.
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Clark’s cellphone and vehicle were seized and search warrants for both were written Monday morning, the police department said.

Police said they believe Clark to be a narcotics distributor and will soon search his vehicle for other illegal substances as well as submit the phone search warrant.