TOWN OF GRATIOT — A Farm and Fleet receipt in a bag of garbage helped police solve a littering case under investigation since June, according to Lafayette County Sheriff Reg Gill. 

Russell J. Mehring, 57, Burlington, was cited for littering by throwing waste from a motor vehicle on Saturday, Oct. 26.

Between June and October, the sheriff’s office received three complaints of bags of garbage being dumped in ditches in rural Gratiot, but the investigating deputy was unable to figure out the source of the garbage, Gill said.

Then the deputy found a clue: a Farm and Fleet receipt in one of the bags. A call to Farm and Fleet and talking with some people at the gas station in Gratiot led the deputy to the property Mehring’s family owns on Patch Road in rural Gratiot.

“The deputy actually put a lot of work into it,” Gill said.

Mehring admitted to dumping bags of garbage, Gill said. Mehring claimed he had been putting garbage in the township dumpster but stopped when he found it locked.

Chuck Herbst, chair of the Town of Gratiot board, said the township locked its dumpster at least 15 years ago and started accepting trash and recycling only during times when it could be staffed. The dumpster is at the township shop on Village Road in Gratiot and is open Tuesdays from noon to 3 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon.

“There’s a person there to collect recyclables and to dispose of garbage and to sell garbage bags,” Herbst said. He added that he was unfamiliar with the littering case.