Just days apart, two cannabis-related homicides have shaken Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, where authorities discovered a body buried at an unlicensed grow near Island Mountain and responded to a fatal shooting tied to a drug trafficking organization on tribal land.
The first case began on May 15, when a Texas-based property owner contacted the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, according to a press release. The woman, who owns land on the 68000 block of Bell Springs Road, a remote area that climbs east from Highway 101 into the Island Mountain region, where Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties converge, told deputies she had received second-hand information suggesting that a worker on her property may be in danger, or possibly dead.
The landowner, who had not been able to reach the adult male worker since May 5, drove from Texas to Ukiah, the Mendocino County seat, over two days to make the report in person. She then accompanied deputies to the remote site, which she described as difficult to access and secured by multiple locked gates…