HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — It’s never a dull day for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens.
TPWD chronicles the more, shall we say, unique calls wardens respond to in our state. One from an April 9 news release involves date night, crystal meth, illegal digging and Baby Yoda.
The Hays County warden responded to the scene after receiving a photo from a game camera that showed a man and a woman trespassing. The couple was digging on an archaeological Native American burial site on the property, and the warden found them in a hole previously dug by other trespassers, TPWD said.
Before the warden could say anything to either person, he said the man hastily stood up and said he wasn’t digging for arrowheads at all, and that he “hates diggers.”
It was later learned the couple were husband and wife, and they were out on a date.
The couple was detained and placed in the warden’s vehicle, where TPWD says the man admitted he had a glass pipe in his pocket he used to smoke CBD oils. It was shaped like Baby Yoda, and it had small, clear and white crystals consistent with the look of crystal meth.
The warden went to speak with the woman, and she said she had no idea they were on private property. TPWD says the couple walked past multiple no-trespassing signs to get to where the warden found them.
After the warden finished talking with the woman, he returned to the front of his vehicle and the Baby Yoda pipe was not where the warden left it.
The warden asked the man if he knew where the pipe went, and the man replied he didn’t know. The warden looked around and found the pipe broken in half in the middle of a fresh footprint a few feet in front of the vehicle.
After further investigation, the warden saw “freshly disturbed dirt” and a small saw in the hole the couple was found in. The warden looked through the woman’s purse and found several rubber gardening gloves, each with four Native American artifacts inside them.
San Marcos police took the couple to the Hays County Jail. On the way to jail, police said the man claimed he had coronavirus, then leaned forward against the partition in the patrol car and “aggressively coughed” toward the officers.
Both were charged with criminal trespass and Antiquities Code violations. The man was also charged with possession of the controlled substance, tampering with evidence and harassment of a public servant.
