It could have played out like a scene out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it didn’t. The Rayburn Correctional Center inmate who found a pistol while picking up trash along Louisiana Highway 438 near Hackley Tuesday did not even touch the weapon.

Neither did the inmate on a different work crew who found a rifle on the same highway near Stateline a little while later.

The rifle was empty. The pistol was loaded.

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Besides the guns, one of the crews also found an abandoned four-wheeler.

“They were all on one 5-mile stretch of highway, but there is no indication that I know of that they are related,” said RCC Warden Bobby Tanner.

He said the inmates who found the weapons “did the right thing.”

“The inmates did what they were supposed to do,” said Tanner. “They didn’t touch the weapons. They reported them to officers, and the officers called the sheriff’s office to come and pick them up.”

The discoveries were made by crews overseen by Sgt. Master Brent Brumfield and Sgt. Master High Magee. Assistant wardens Ron Branch and Gerald Lebo provided additional information.

Brumfield’s crew was working on Louisiana Highway 438 near Hackley when an inmate approached him and said, “There’s a pistol laying under the bridge.” Brumfield checked it out and found a Jennings 9 millimeter pistol. The officer then notified his supervisor and the sheriff’s office.

Magee’s crew was working on the same highway near Stateline when an inmate told him there was a rifle, with no clip, in the grass.  That gun was determined to be a .22 caliber Remington. Magee also reported the discovery.

A little later, when his crew was working on the highway near Thomas, Brumfield himself spotted a Yamaha 4-wheeler on the side of the road.

“That was a hot stretch of road,” the wardens said.

Fortunately, it didn’t get any hotter. The men said the prison “inmates on road crews are trusties, and pretty close to getting out.”

Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office Chief Walter Smith said the found items were “turned over to our paper server who turned them over to detectives.”

“The detectives are in the process of running the serial numbers through system,” he said. “The weapons were not entered as stolen. A four wheeler was reported missing from a camp on O. A, Green Road, but not in connection with a handgun.”

Detectives are currently investigating to see if they can determine ownership. Deputy Chief Shannon Lyons said there were recently a couple of thefts in the Angie area, but that no guns meeting the descriptions of the weapons found were reported. However, the guns could have been stolen and not yet reported, he said.

Lyons said he believes the weapons might have been taken in a theft or burglary, and that the perpetrator “got scared for whatever reason and threw them out.”

It is not believed the guns were used in the commission of a crime, and it was not clear how long they might have been laying along the side of the highway awaiting discovery by the RCC work crew.

Such finds by prison road crews are not unheard of, said Tanner.

“It does happen,” he said. “I’ve talked to wardens of other facilities. It’s not uncommon. But two in one day is unusual, and by two different crews. Of course they were on the same stretch of highway.”

Tanner said everything worked out well.

“I’m glad we were able to find them before a kid or anybody got hurt,” he said. “I commend the inmates and the officers, the inmates for doing the right thing and the officers for reporting and maintaining the scene.”

Smith agreed that the discoveries were well-handled.

“The guns got to the right place,” he said.