Community Drugs Break-in (1968)
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| Main Street, East Longmeadow, 1964 (Note City Line Pharmacy on the far right) |
Southwick police officer Henry LaBombard noticed a broken plate glass window and heard an alarm sounding at Community Drugs, located in the Southwick Shopping Center on College Highway, around 2:00 a.m.
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| Community Drugs, Southwick |
As Officer LaBombard pulled his cruiser in to investigate, a car from behind the store sped by him and headed southbound on College Highway. Officer LaBombard gave chase.
The fleeing vehicle became airborne when it failed to negotiate the turn at Klaus Anderson Road. The car soared through the air, briefly touching down before apparently going airborne again (at least 75 feet) until it came crashing down, ejecting its occupants and eventually skidding to a stop. The two occupants were taken to the hospital.
One of the occupants was Edward Earl DeMars, a 36-year-old former New England light heavyweight boxing champion with a laundry list of previous run-ins with the law, including car accidents, drug possession, assault and battery, writing a bad check, and traffic violations. He died later that night (about 10:00 p.m.). Ronald Authier was the other occupant. Badly injured, he spent about a week in Noble Hospital. Police charged him with breaking and entering in the nighttime, larceny of narcotics, and taking a car without authority.
Ronald claimed he was innocent at his first court appearance on December 4, 1968. Back in court on Saturday, December 14, the judge, finding probable cause, ordered Ronald bound over for a grand jury.
When Ronald returned for arraignment in Superior Court on January 14, he pleaded not guilty to the original charges stemming from the Southwick burglary (breaking and entering in the nighttime and larceny) and additional charges: stealing from a registered pharmacist, possession of harmful drugs, and possession of narcotics. At that same court appearance, Ronald also had to answer charges resulting from the East Longmeadow break-in, and the judge subsequently raised his bail from $2,000 to $4,000. When Ronald appeared back in court on January 17, the judge ordered him to be examined by a physician of the public defender's choosing, at taxpayer expense, to see if he was still a drug addict. (The value of the drugs was around $42.)
GATEWAY DRUG?
Ronald was one of nine arrested for marijuana possession after police raided a "pot party" at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, September 1, 1967. The raid occurred at an apartment that had been under police surveillance for two weeks. Officers confiscated one pound of marijuana. A judge set each defendant's bail at $500.
Edward DeMars received a three-month suspended sentence in April of 1956 after being arrested with 39 others for illegal gambling. He spent five years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Walpole after selling marijuana to a federal agent.
Springfield police arrested Edward's widow on drug charges on January 27, 1971. The police, who had her apartment under surveillance, also arrested her son and four of his teenage friends. Police charged the Widow DeMars with possession of heroin, possession of a hypodermic needle and syringe, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, being present where a narcotic drug is illegally kept, and conspiracy to violate state narcotic law. (The teens each received various charges.)
Ronald's father died at age 57 on March 14, 1969. He was a musician who had conducted his own orchestra. He also taught classical piano and was the program director for a local radio station in Springfield.
Ronald had brothers and sisters. His sister Janet died in 1993, aged 41. She, too, had arrests for drug possession.
Ronald died in Florida in 2002. He was only 54.
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