The Search Is On For Cotton Vandals At Area Farms

WEBSTER COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s an unusual crime.

Bales of cotton cut open, and others lit on fire.

That’s the damage some area farmers recently woke up to.

Now, they are asking for help finding the vandals, while trying to figure out how bad this will hit their pocketbook.

The cost is already in the thousands of dollars.

Now, state and local law enforcement are trying to find who destroyed the crops.

Devastating. It’s the only way William Tabb can find to describe the damage.

It’s not the first time he’s been a victim of crime, but he’s more determined than ever to find the person that cut his bales of cotton open.

William Tabb and other farmers started picking up cotton early Thursday morning.

The Webster County farmer found nearly 40 of his cotton bales damaged, worth about eighty-thousand dollars.

“If you want to keep doing this kind of stuff, don’t wear clothes and don’t eat.”

It’s not the first time there’s been crime down on the farm.

“A pick up stolen in the daytime, in broad daylight in the field that I was working in. I’ve had tons of equipment vandalized. I’ve had my pick up broken into a handful of times. I’ve had tools and thousands of dollars worth of tools stolen. I even had a Webster County Supervisor caught on my property trespassing.”

Tabb says it’s time for something to be done.

“Guess how many times justice has been served? Zero. So, Webster County it’s like the Wild West.”

Bales of cotton were burned on another farm in Montgomery County.

“How do I work all year and then rest at night knowing that people are out here, don’t have enough morals, not to come cut your cotton, ride around, set your cotton on fire.”

Jeff Briscoe is helping Tabb literally pick up the pieces of his crop that he can salvage.

He’s been in the Ag business for decades and has never seen anything like this.

“We all kind of stick together and work together and try to help each other out when bad situations come along like this. It’s just a shame that this happened.”

The damaged crop will cost Tabb money this year and next year.

“If I don’t get all of my cotton ginned on this particular farm, it will have a trickle effect on everything. I’ll lose the actual cotton. I’ll lose the cotton on the ground up there. I’ll lose it and grades if we get a lot of dirt in it, if it rains on it, and then, I’ll also lose my yield for my next insurance premium.”

Tabb says he’s thankful for the Farm Bureau Federation reaching out to him offering advice and help.

If you have information on the case, call the Mississippi Agriculture Theft Bureau at (800) 678-2660.