BYU NewsNet - Man Reports Stolen Marijuana

When Kory C. Tippetts, 18, returned home after work Monday evening, Jan. 30, 2006, he discovered someone had broken into his Orem home and stolen his marijuana. Tippetts, however, was going to get that marijuana back, even if it meant reporting his quarter-pound of illegal drugs to police, providing a possible suspect, and identifying the bag of weed in the presence of officers.

And that's exactly what he did.

It's "not very darn often" criminals such as Tippetts come along, stated Lt. Doug Edwards of the Orem Department of Public Safety. "Even the dumb criminals are generally smarter than this."

After Tippetts reported the burglary to police-and that his bag of marijuana was the only thing missing-he suggested his friend Richard W. Hight, 23, as the probable suspect. According to the police report, Tippetts claimed Hight had called him earlier in the day asking to buy some marijuana, but Tippetts declined making the drug deal because he was on his way to work. Police agreed that Hight was a good suspect, Edwards said, but they were scratching their heads as to why Tippetts would implicate himself in the process.

"I have no clue as to why [Tippetts] would report this crime to the police," Edwards said in a news release. "But thank goodness he did."

When officers found Hight at his mother's home in Provo, he had a cut on his arm and blood-soaked pants, apparently a result of the window he'd broken and crawled through at Tippetts' home.

Hight was found to be in possession of six ounces of marijuana and arrested for burglary, theft, and possession of marijuana in a drug-free-zone with the intent to distribute.

"With the stolen marijuana now in hand, the officers called [Tippetts] to come to the Orem Public Safety Building and identify his stolen bag of dope," Edwards said. "He actually came and identified it as his."

At that point, Tippetts joined Hight in the Utah County jail on charges of possession of marijuana in a drug-free-zone with the intent to distribute.

Edwards called it a "2-fer-deal"-two for the price of one.