However, the next day, they saw some large pieces of wood in the garden and went to investigate.
She told Nogales worldwide newspaper: ‘It’s all right on top of our dog’s house.
Nogales Police Department investigators told the Donnelly family the bundle, which weighed in at 23.8 pounds, likely fell from an ultralight aircraft that crossed the border and dropped one of its packages prematurely. She immediately rang her husband after assuming the package contained drugs. ‘He was probably at the gate watching the plane go by’.
Everyone likes getting a surprise care package, but a almost 24 pound case of marijuana crashing through the roof of your carport is probably not the “care” most people would be hoping for.
Their dog was not in his house at the time. They fly low, quietly (compared to other private aircraft), and drug-smugglers like to use them at night, smuggling drugs from Mexico into the U.S.
According to a police report, there was a plastic bracket and black electrical tape attached to the bundle, and these attachments may have been all that was holding the cargo to the aircraft.
He said: “Someone definitely made a mistake, and who knows what the outcome of that mistake might be for them”. They’ll take a couple, two, three bundles.
Maya Donnelly thinks it’s unlikely someone will come looking for the drugs, as they are now in police custody. Arnson agreed but said police have boosted patrols in the Donnellys neighborhood for now.
The damage to the carport will put the family down an estimated $500, on top of needing a new house for Hulk.
But the incident on September 8 could have been much worse for the couple and their three teenage daughters.
“Thank goodness [Hulk] is a wanderer at night and was not in his house”, said Maya Donnelly.
Mrs. Donnelly said that friends and family had joked that she should have kept the drugs to pay for the repairs. And it’s not the first time something like this has happened, says Nogales police spokesman Robert Fierro.
She said: “That’s what everybody says: ‘Why did you call 911?’ But how can you have a clear conscience, right?”