From left are (front row) Commonwealth’s Attorneys Jane Wrightson, Jeff Schmidt and Wayne Emory; (next row) Sheriffs Chuck Wilkins, Ronnie Crockett and Dougie Bryant. Photo by Ashley O’Bier.

According to officials, the benefits are two-fold: more cases are solved and shared assets keep costs down.

Since its inception more than three years ago, the sheriff’s departments and Commonwealth’s Attorney offices in Lancaster, Northumberland and Richmond counties have been sharing resources and manpower on cases involving drug dealings, gangs and violent crimes such as murder and rape.

“The way you solve cases is with shared information,” said Northumberland County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jane Wrightson. “These people are cross sworn and flow between counties. It allows counties to alert other investigators and know the cases being worked on.”

Commonwealth’s Attorneys Wrightson, C. Jeffers Schmidt in Lancaster and Wayne Emery in Richmond County work together as special counsel to a multi-jurisdictional grand jury formed in 1996 that convenes twice a month to question witnesses to major crimes and secure indictments.

Special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Virginia State Police also participate.

“Everyone works together,” said investigator Jim Bruce of the Northumberland County Sheriff’s Department. “Each sheriff and Commonwealth’s Attorney is in control in their county.”

With the proliferation of national and local gangs, the task force also maintains a data base on known gang members in the area, said Bruce.

When a serial rapist terrorized Kilmarnock residents nearly two years ago, the task force quickly wove a web of security in the town. Police from neighboring counties joined local officers and patrolled residential areas each night. Additionally, a state police profiler was consulted for information on the psychological and behavioral profile to guide focus to potential suspects.

“The other two counties supplied the electronic surveillance equipment that was placed in neighborhoods, trees and in a victim’s home in case he returned,” said Lancaster investigator Joanie Kent. “The additional assistance and resources came at no additional costs.”

A young man fitting the profile was captured a couple of weeks later at his sister’s home in Baltimore after he raped and attempted to kill a woman there.

Kent, who got him to confess to the Kilmarnock assaults, said the profiler had predicted the intense patrol in Kilmarnock might “push him out of his comfort zone.” He was convicted in Maryland earlier this year and is serving a 40-year sentence. DNA also matched him to previous unsolved rape cases in Baltimore, and those court cases are pending.

Schmidt said he is working with the governor’s office to have him extradited to Virginia to stand trial.

Lancaster Sheriff Ronnie Crockett said having the task force in place helped law enforcement quickly respond in Kilmarnock. “Working together benefits all of us when you look at the number of solved cases in all three counties. It saves manpower and resources. We all deal with the same people crossing county lines. Working together stopped a lot of that.”

While the task force forges ahead with current cases, they also are investigating cold cases, including the 2006 murder of a young man whose body was found in Lodge Creek near Callao.

“On a regular basis, we’re following up leads, using every state and federal resource we have available to us,” said Northumberland Sheriff Chuck Wilkins. “We’ve had more resources available to us on this one case than any case we’ve ever had.”

Different agencies have made equipment and manpower available to the search effort, including helicopters for locating the victim’s car and dive teams who found the car in the river after discovering minute traces of oil on the surface. Despite the age of the case, Wilkins said, “We’re not going to stop until we get some kind of satisfaction.”

Wilkins said the three sheriff’s departments are working well together, “...better now than at any other time in my 28-year career, with regular support from additional agencies.”

The Richmond County Sheriff’s Department in 2010 stopped the largest marijuana grow operation in the state when they located and dismantled three separate growing fields with a collective street value of $63 million. Sheriff Douglas Bryant credited the bust to the cooperative efforts of officers from neighboring counties in obtaining tips on the location of the fields and helping to dismantle them. With DEA and National Guard helicopters, the task force continues to monitor the area, looking for new grow operations.

Because of the area’s proximity to Richmond, Newport News and Baltimore/Washington, a large amount of drugs can flow through the Northern Neck, and big-time dealers occasionally hide out here, said FBI agent Bruce Hough.

“The amount of drugs down here is staggering,” said Hough. “No one (in federal law enforcement) was paying attention to the Northern Neck.”

But the task force’s 2008 capture near Alphonso of two drug dealers wanted by the FBI put a spotlight on the region and gained the cooperation of federal agencies, he said.

“Do we stop the flow of drugs to the region? No, but we’re doing everything we can to curtail it,” said Wrightson. “We work on it every day. There’s not enough money in anyone’s budget to take care of crime in the Northern Neck, so we banded together to take care of it.”

Prior to the task force, investigations ended at county lines, said Wrightson. Some years back, there was a history of the counties working together. “The sheriffs felt it was important to revive it...” she added. “There’s no question we solve more crimes together and faster than if working alone.”

Wrightson said working cooperatively doesn’t just happen—it takes a certain dynamic to make it happen. “You have to work on it all the time. You can’t run your case up the flag pole; you have to keep egos under control...not be territorial.”

“There is a very unusual dynamic down here,” added special agent Hough. “It’s an unbelievable tight group of people.”

Schmidt said officers get little credit for their hard work in fighting the war against crime in the Northern Neck. It is very much a team effort among the three county sheriff’s departments and Commonwealth’s Attorneys, he added. “Statistics are hard to cite, but we believe drug crimes are down 30%, in part due to our cooperative efforts.”