Bryant Cochran
Angela GarmleyROME, Ga. — Three weeks before Angela Garmley’s arrest in August 2012, Murray County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Donald Ridley says, he got a tip.
Ridley took the stand Thursday in former Murray County Magistrate Bryant Cochran’s federal criminal trial on six charges, ranging from conspiring to distribute a controlled substance to tampering with a witness.
He told the jury that Cochran called him one night in July 2012. Cochran said to look out for Garmley’s car, a white Dodge Charger, the only one in the county with red stripes running down the sides.
Cochran said Garmley was meeting with an informant at a nearby trailer. Stop the car, he said, and look at the sun visor above the driver’s seat. There you will find drugs, Cochran told Ridley.
At that point, Ridley knew all about Garmley and Cochran. The whole county did. Residents gossiped all over town about the allegations they read in the newspaper.