LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – Last Friday morning, La Follette Police Officer Zack Daugherty followed up a hang up call to 9-1-1 with a welfare check to the area of 807 East Hemlock Street. As Daugherty attempted to locate where the call originated right before 10am, he heard an argument between a male and a female inside Apartment A of 807 East Hemlock Street.

Madison Dobson answered the door when Officer Daugherty knocked and honored the officer’s request to step outside and talk. Daugherty asked Dobson if she called 9-1-1 and who she was arguing with, and she allegedly said she did not make the call and that she and Justin Strunk were only having a verbal argument. Strunk, who later came out of the home, also said the argument was only verbal.

Dobson and Strunk consented to allow officers to look inside the apartment to ensure there were no signs of a physical altercation. When LPD Sergeant Noah Riggs arrived on scene, he and Officer Daugherty went inside the home and saw no signs of a physical altercation.

However, the sergeant smelled a strong odor of marijuana while inside Apartment A. He also saw a set of scales in plain sight under a bed with marijuana joints also in plain sight beside the scales. When asked if there was anything else illegal in their home, Dobson and Strunk allegedly said no and then gave Sergeant Riggs consent to search the rest of the apartment after he asked.

Riggs located several large bags that smelled of marijuana and two USPS packages that were sent from Los Angeles. Officer Daugherty searched a closet finding a big suitcase that contained a large amount of U-S Currency and a Ziploc bag that appeared to hold cocaine according to the report from the La Follette Police Department.

After their findings, Daugherty notified LPD Detective Sergeant Matt Forsyth. Forsyth arrived and read Miranda rights to Dobson and Strunk. The Detective Sergeant allegedly located a vacuum sealer and four large bags inside the suitcase containing what appeared to be marijuana. Officer Daugherty came across a .380 Glock model 42 laying under a blanket on Strunk’s bed.

La Follette Police determined the marijuana weighed three and a half pounds and the cocaine seven ounces.

Dobson, 20, of 807 East Hemlock Street, Apartment A, was not arrested. Strunk, 27, of 135 Sherman Adkins Road in Huntsville (Scott County, TN) was placed into custody and transported to the Campbell County Jail at Jacksboro.

Strunk remains housed in the county jail this afternoon on a $95,000 bond awaiting a Thursday court date in General Sessions Court. He is facing multiple charges including possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of schedule II and VI for resale. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED 03/01/2022-1:30PM)