In a tiny town, these brothers ran a crack cocaine 'Wal-Mart.' It took years to stop them.

For more than a decade, a pair of brothers operated a “Wal-Mart” of crack cocaine out of a single-wide mobile home and a Winnebago, selling drugs worth millions of dollars in a town too small to buy a bottle of soda.

Godwin’s entire population of 139 people could see the line of customers stretching to the exit ramp off Interstate 95, watching as nearly 300 pounds of cocaine got sold a few rocks at a time. Prostitutes would gather in nearby parking lot. One customer overdosed inside the trailer.

Residents tore at their hair.

“When I became mayor, they beat on my door every day,” said Mayor Willie Burnette, who operates a garage down the street from the trailer. “We just had to be patient.”

On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced Antoine Dewayne Myles, 42, of Dunn, and his brother Lemont Jerrone Webb, 44, of Godwin, to life in prison for drug and money laundering conspiracy. Their father, Harry Myles Sr., got 64 months for his role in the conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon Jr. announced another 15 drug and money laundering convictions stemming from the federal, state and local investigation, which spanned seven years. He noted that with life sentences in federal prison, parole is not possible.

“They’ll come out in a pine box,” he said.

Sitting just off the interstate, the Cumberland County town north of Fayetteville offered easy access to drug buyers in a territory spanning three counties. But the town itself offered little cover, considering its population only hit three digits after a recent annexation.

At the intersection of Main Street and U.S. 301, the only business is a church ministry open four hours a week, where a donor had dropped off two cardboard boxes full of mason jars.

Residents fumed for years over perceived inaction in the case everyone knew about.

Across the interstate, Falcon Mayor Clifton Turpin Jr. said, “They were lined up on 95 like it was Wal-Mart and they were getting their groceries. It’s hard for us to understand when you see it happen right in front of you.”

But the brothers used a series of techniques to thwart investigators. They hired employees to work out of the trailer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If the employees got arrested, they would bail them out or replace them, never appearing in the trailer themselves.

In 2014, the Cumberland County sheriff’s office obtained an injunction against the trailer where the drugs were sold, and in response, Myles and Webb moved across the street into a Winnebago. Their father played a central role by allowing crack cocaine to be stored in multiple properties owned in his name, hiding the source of the money used to buy them and laundering more than $175,000 in drug money, Higdon said.

Myles and Webb bought trucks and started a towing business to disguise drug proceeds. Multiple vehicles were purchased using other people’s names as owners to keep them from being seized.

“They were thumbing their noses at us,” Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis Wright said.

The investigation required agents to slowly infiltrate the “family,” Wright said, and it would eventually require a federal wiretap. He seemed apologetic about the time it took to build a complete case, noting that the conspiracy dated to his time as a patrol officer more than a decade ago.

“Just walk in and kick the door in, it doesn’t work any more,” Wright said.

Burnette, Godwin’s mayor, recalled being awakened by flash-bang grenades that officers tossed to make arrests several years ago.

“I was in bed,” he said, “but I thought I was in Vietnam.”

Webb and the elder Myles were convicted in January and the younger Myles followed in March.

The federal government has seized much of the ring’s assets, including the trailer, now marked with a large yellow “No Trespassing” sign.

Godwin is quiet again.

Josh Shaffer: 919-829-4818, @joshshaffer0

This story was originally published June 21, 2018 at 11:45 AM with the headline "In a tiny town, these brothers ran a crack cocaine 'Wal-Mart.' It took years to stop them.."