ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 21, 1996 TAG: 9611210023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
Drug addiction soothed the physical pain for 59-year-old Wilford Harley Neighbors.
First, it was Percocet.
When doctors stopped prescribing that for a heart condition, he said, he moved on to heroin. Friends introduced him to it, saying it would relieve his withdrawal from painkillers. Neighbors began by snorting. Within two weeks, at the urging of his dealer, he injected.
His one-bag-a-day habit grew to a minimum of seven bags a day. Heroin became his reason for living. And dealing became a financial necessity.
"I ran out of money, pawned off everything," Neighbors said. "I didn't see any way out but to start selling."
Neighbors believed the small cadre of addicts he sold to would never give him up. He was wrong.
In August, a Roanoke County grand jury indicted Neighbors on four counts of distributing heroin based on evidence gathered by one of his users, who turned police informant.
Wednesday, Neighbors struck an agreement with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to all four charges in Roanoke County Circuit Court. In return, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach agreed not to proceed on seven other possible distribution indictments. Those charges would not have made an impact on his sentence, Leach said.
For the first distribution charge, Neighbors faces five to 40 years in prison. For each of the subsequent three charges, he faces five years to life imprisonment.
"I knew what I was doing was wrong," Neighbors said later Wednesday. "But I had no other choice. I was addicted."
Neighbors' arrest capped a seven-month investigation into Roanoke County's heroin community. Police say Neighbors was the only major source in the county. He dealt to a group of users who ranged in age from 20 to 40 years old, according to Detective Debbie Hogan.
"I think the heroin market was a little bigger than we thought," Hogan said of the investigation. "It's a closely knit group that's hard to get into. We know we made a dent with Willie. But we haven't gotten all the spokes of the wheel."
The local heroin market has begun to reflect national reports of a resurgence in the drug's use. Local drug agents say they are seeing purer doses of heroin, making more arrests than several years ago and hearing more about the drug from their informants.
But crack cocaine remains the No.1 illegal drug problem. A small group of users sustains the region's heroin trade, local experts say.
Neighbors' voice runs rough; his skin shines gray from a variety of ailments - kidney stones, diabetes, heart problems. He is an old-timer whose knowledge of heroin dates back to the early 1970s. He spent most of the decade in prison on a charge of distributing a derivative of heroin, he said.
But he said he didn't start to use drugs until mid-1994. Over the past two years, Neighbors said, he has spent $40,000 on his heroin habit, drying up his bank account. Selling the drug was merely a method to sustain his addiction, not a profit-making business, he said.
"He was an addict who got in over his head," said Neighbors' court-appointed attorney, Jack Gregory.
But police and prosecutors see Neighbors differently. They say he earned about $2,000 a day on sales of the drug, used about 25 bags a day and supplied 10 to 12 people.
Neighbors says authorities exaggerated and that the bags of heroin the informant turned over to police didn't have the "High Speed" brand name that he always sold.
He said he began to sell at the beginning of this year, purchasing 50 bags of heroin - called a "brick" - about twice a week. From that he would keep 25 bags for his own use and sell the rest. He said he sold each bag for about $30, supplied seven customers and made about $800, just enough to buy himself another "brick" of heroin.
"You have to chase the dope, chase the money and the addicts," he said. "You don't ever have time for a job. You only have time for drugs. It's a constant run."
He lost most of his possessions and nearly lost his girlfriend and 16-year-old son. After his arrest, he used three times while out on bail, went cold turkey and got clean. He hasn't taken a hit for 79 days, he said.
"I'm so glad I don't have to wake up and get some," he said. "It's like you're waking up with pneumonia. You don't feel like anything. You just want to find somebody to get the drugs. Once you get the drugs, you're all right."
Neighbors is out on $5,000 bond awaiting his sentencing in January. The plea agreement made no recommendation on how much time he should serve.
"I'll just sit back and wait for time to elapse," Neighbors said. "Again I have no choice, just like with the drugs. I'm trapped between a rock and a hard spot."
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