Death leads to Delaware County man's arrest, seizure of more than 2 pounds of heroin
MUNCIE, Ind. — A Delaware County man was arrested Monday after authorities found more than two pounds of heroin in a bedroom at his home in Albany.
Kirk Allen Wood, 62, was being held Tuesday in the Delaware County jail under a $130,000 cash bond, preliminarily charged with two counts of dealing in a narcotic drug, a Level 2 felony carrying up to 30 years in prison.
Albany police and Gary Vannatta, Delaware County's chief deputy coroner, were investigating a death at Wood's home, in the 300 block of North Mound Street, when a large amount of narcotics were found there. Members of the Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force were then called to the scene.
In an affidavit, Stephen Wright, a corporal with the sheriff's department and an investigator with the task force, said 1,191.6 grams of heroin — about 2.6 pounds — were found in the home.
Jeff Stanley, the sheriff's chief deputy, said Tuesday the street value of the heroin could be $120,000 to $200,000, depending on how the drug was "cut."
Also seized were numerous tablets of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid at times mixed with heroin, that weighed nearly 1,000 grams, or more than two pounds.
Stanley estimated the street value of those pills at $38,000.
Also found were a semi-automatic handgun and a shotgun.
Wright reported Wood was later arrested at an abandoned mobile home park in Albany.
Vannatta said the death in the Mound Street home — of 75-year-old Delmar Claude Holland — remained under investigation, with what was at first believed to be a "cardiac event" now being probed as a possible overdose.
Anyone with information how to reach family members of Holland — believed to be from California and with Colorado plates on his vehicle — is asked to call the Delaware County coroner's office at at 765-747-7724. A voice-mail message can be left if the call is made when the office is not staffed.
Investigators determined Kirk Wood was the target of an arrest warrant issued in San Bernardino County, California, where he faces a weapons-related charge.
Wood declined to discuss the drugs and firearms found in his home, but reportedly acknowledged he was prohibited from possessing guns due to a burglary conviction.
The Albany man — who apparently has no previous convictions in Indiana — was also preliminarily charged Monday with unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon and possession of meth.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Death leads to Albany man's arrest, seizure of two pounds of heroin
