You're missing the point that these weren't just typical drug users wanting quick cash to fulfil their immediate need... one was busted with a whole pound of coke last time they were caught.
Not only does this indicate they were likely distributing, but also it means that guy was deeply in debt when he was let out onto the street again.
SLAY SUSPECT'S
Grandfather of his 'wife' faces charges in Maine
Friday, March 11, 2005
By Michaelangelo Conte
Journal staff writer
One of the men charged with murdering the Armanious family was part of an interstate crack dealing group led by the grandfather of the woman he was living with, drug officers in Maine said yesterday.
The grandfather, 65-year-old Victor "Papo" Torres, of Jersey City, was charged with drug trafficking in Auburn, Maine, this week, but investigators say they do not believe he was involved in the Armanious murders.
When Edward McDonald, 25, was arrested last week and charged with four counts of felony murder for the Armanious killings, he had been living on Charles Street, in the Heights, with Stephanie Torres, the granddaughter of Victor Torres.
Victor Torres has a long criminal record in New Jersey, officials said, adding that his brother killed multiple family members on Palisade Avenue decades ago and his son was convicted of manslaughter after killing a man on Ogden Avenue.
Stephanie Torres, the mother of two of McDonald's children, has no criminal record, according to Special Agent Gerry Baril of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio
A wedding announcement for Torres and McDonald appeared in The Jersey Journal in 2002, though DeFazio said Torres told investigators the two are not married.
McDonald spent time in federal prison on drug charges stemming from an arrest in Maine in 2001, and DeFazio said that arrest was related to the Torres family drug trafficking there.
"If you look at the crimes that Victor Torres has been convicted of, what just happened with the family there in Jersey City with McDonald looking for money to buy crack, one could certainly draw the analogy that these folks are dangerous and have a propensity for violence," said Special Agent Gerry Baril of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.
"The connection between the girl he was living with shows a relationship and up here in Maine he was hooked up with another member of the Torres family."
"Apparently, the federal conviction of Edward McDonald was related to his activities with the Torres family in Maine."
The investigation that led to McDonald's arrest in Poland, Maine, in 2001, "associated him with members of the Torres family from Jersey City, suspected of importing and distributing cocaine and crack cocaine in the greater Lewiston-Auburn area," Baril said.