Store receipt leads police to arrest man they say had shoebox full of marijuana

STAMFORD -- A receipt for a bag of pistachios led investigators to fine and arrest of the owner of a shoebox stuffed with more than a pound of marijuana found late last year, police said.

The shoebox, stashed in a drop ceiling of a Glenbrook Road apartment complex laundry room, belonged to a city man who was arrested on a warrant Wednesday.

Leighton Livingston Edwards, 27, of 39 Glenbrook Road, Stamford, was charged with possession of more than four ounces of marijuana and sale of a controlled substance.

He was released Wednesday after posting $15,000 bond.

Narcotics and Organized Crime Unit Lt. Timothy Shaw said the case began when someone at an apartment complex at 39 Glenbrook Road found a package stuffed into the drop ceiling on Dec. 23.

Police responded to the laundry room and examined the package. Inside was a shoebox, and inside it were nine baggies containing more than a pound of marijuana, Shaw said.

When police examined the box, they found a time-stamped receipt for a bag of pistachios from Mrs. Green's Natural Market on High Ridge Road.

Officers at Mrs. Green's later were looking through the store's surveillance footage to figure out who bought the pistachios, when a man walked into the store, police said.

Officers recognized the man because he was the same person they were just looking at on tape buying the bag of pistachios, Shaw said.

Officers then asked the man, later identified as Edwards, for identification.

It showed he lived at the apartment complex where the marijuana was found, police said.