Marijuana Plants

County homicide investigators are looking for leads that would identify a man who was found shot to death on the side of a Pasadena road early yesterday morning.County police spokesman Officer V. Richard Molloy said detectives are hoping fingerprints or a missing personsreport will identify the black man found lying in plain view on the side of Alpine Beach Road at about 8 a.m. by a woman who had walked by.The man, who is believed to have been in his mid-40s, was shot inthe side of the head.

Carroll drug officers who raided a Taneytown home in May rousted a woman from the shower and refused to let her put on any clothes for more than an hour, the woman and her attorney said yesterday.Diane Lynn Warner "was not allowed to immediately dress upon exiting the shower," her defense attorney, Leonard H. Shapiro, said yesterday in Carroll Circuit Court. "I'm sure the delay was for security reasons," he added in a sarcastic tone.Mrs. Warner, 37, and her husband, Patrick Nelson Warner, 34, were in court yesterday to plead guilty to drug charges stemming from the raid on their former home in the 5400 block of Taneytown Pike, in which officers found a total of 3.7 grams of marijuana.

Two Baltimore County men have been busted on marijuana charges because of the chance discovery of a 15-plant pot garden and a 13-day stakeout by forest rangers of a mosquito-infested site in Gunpowder Falls State Park.A search of one suspect's Essex home early yesterday turned up an assortment of firearms and a sealed room where 63 more marijuana plants were being cultivated under artificial sunlight, Baltimore County police said."He had the nicest library of how to cultivate plants under drought conditions," said Detective Sgt. Dennis J. O'Neill of the county's narcotics unit, describing the suspect's collection of books dealing with agriculture and gardening.

One-fifth of a ton of marijuana, a sophisticated plant cultivation system and marijuana plants -- some 4 feet tall and growing -- were confiscated when city police raided an Upper Fells Point rowhouse after receiving a tip on the department's drug hot line. Police entered a three-story rowhouse in the 1900 block of East Pratt St. about 9 p.m. Tuesday. John Arbuckle, 33, was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Police said Arbuckle was in the house.

State marijuana laws, which say smugglers have to bring 100 pounds into Maryland before police may charge them with a felony, are inadequate to deal with today's drug trade, police and prosecutors told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday."

A Union Mills couple arrested in September after police found five marijuana plants -- 4 feet to 15 feet tall -- growing on their farm were convicted yesterday of drug charges.Randy Scott Leidy, 32, pleaded guilty to manufacturing marijuana and his wife, Carole Jean Leidy, 30, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. The guilty pleas were part of an agreement with the state.Assistant State's Attorney Barton F. Walker III agreed to dismiss the six remaining charges against the couple, whose farm in the 3100 block of Littlestown Pike was raided on Sept.

Your recent front page article about criminal asset seizures and the Diffenderffers was good investigative reporting ("Seizing assets to take profits from crime," Feb. 17). To recap, Michael Diffenderffer had marijuana plants in his basement. The police discovered them, but he turned up dead, so there was nobody to convict. The government then moved to confiscate the house from his evidently innocent widow in a forfeiture action. Nowadays, it is apparently routine for the government to take property as punishment before, or without, a conviction.

County narcotics police in two raids this month seized 31 marijuana plants worth $40,000 and charged four people with possession with intent to distribute.Acting on an informant's tip, officers from theCarroll County Narcotics Task Force seized six of the plants in a Wednesday night raid on a home in the 4600 block of Bartholow Road in Sykesville.Cpl. John Burton, supervisor of the task force, said during a press conference Thursday that the raid was conducted after an investigation by the Marijuana Crop Eradication Unit of the state police.

A little before midnight on August 21, 1990, acting on an anonymous tip, two law-enforcement officers went to the home of Robert Alan Young in Edmonds, Washington. They never went inside. They stayed on the sidewalk. After an hour they were certain that Mr. Young was growing marijuana.The officers relied upon an infrared thermal detection device. The cultivation of in-house marijuana demands a great deal of heat. The detectives found the basement much warmer than the upstairs. One chimney vent was hot, the other cool.

A 16-year-old girl told police she was raped early yesterday morningby a man who offered to drive her to her boyfriend's house.Investigators said about 10:45 p.m. Sunday, the girl was waiting for a busat Route 2 and Creswell Road in Brooklyn Park when a man in a red compact car drove up.According to police, the man told the girl he had beer and cigarettes and would drive her to Dorsey Road, where her boyfriend lives. The girl told him she did not want any beer, but accepted a ride, police said.