Three Charged with Metal Theft, Drug Offenses

Police charged three men with theft and narcotics offenses Saturday after they say they found a hypodermic syringe with heroin inside a pickup truck an officer pulled over on the Black Horse Pike on suspicion it was involved in the theft of metal from a local business earlier in the day.

Gloucester Township Police Ptl. Eric Marconi stopped the pickup truck in which the three men were traveling after a witness had earlier provided a description matching it while officers initially investigated the theft of metal from Iron Asylum, located at 109 N. Black Horse Pike, according to Lt. Edward Bryant.

Marconi arrested the pickup's driver, identified as 36-year-old Browns Mill resident Douglas Reynolds, on the charge of driving while intoxicated.

The police officer then found the hypodermic syringe inside the truck, and charged Reynolds and passengers Andrew Mann, 34, of Ship Bottom, and Joseph McDaniel, 26, of Grand Avenue in Blackwood, with possessing it, Bryant said.

Reynolds, Mann and McDaniel all were charged with third-degree theft and conspiracy to commit theft, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a hypodermic syringe, and possession of a controlled dangerous substance (heroin).

All three men were lodged in Camden County Jail on $10,000 bail.

Police say the three men were heading back to Iron Asylum, a business that specializes in steel fabrication and custom ironwork, to steal more metal to sell as scrap when Marconi pulled over the pickup.