2 arrested after allegedly digging up buried drugs for jail inmate

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A man already in jail faces more charges after allegedly calling a friend to ask him to dig up buried drugs for him.

New Hanover County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Jerry Brewer says Darius Jamel Williams talked to Rynell Morice Solomon by phone from the New Hanover County Detention Center and explained to him where to find drugs buried in the backyard of a home in the 700 block of Grathwol Drive.

Inmate calls are recorded and reviewed. That led investigators to stake out the house. Brewer says they were there Tuesday when Solomon and Cordelia Patrice Ross showed up to dig. Investigators say they caught the duo with 36 grams of cocaine, seven grams of marijuana, 92 grams of ecstasy and a stolen gun.

Brewer says charges for Solomon, 31, Ross, 29, and Williams include possession of a stolen firearm, trafficking MDA/MDMA, trafficking cocaine and possession of marijuana. Solomon and Ross are in jail under $2 million bond each.

Records show Solomon has spent most of the last seven years in prison on drug crimes and then a post-release revocation. He got out of prison in February.

Ross’s criminal record includes several misdemeanor convictions.

Williams is a federal inmate being housed in the county jail. He was arrested Tuesday and faces a heroin distribution charge, according to court records, which also show he is on federal probation after being convicted for cocaine possession and possession of a firearm by a felon.