Stanford was not home at the time officers arrived, but his wife allowed police into the home after being read the warrant. Officers evidently tried to locate Stanford without success before beginning their search. This search lasted around five hours. When the search was completed, officers had, in total, seized approximately 2,000 of Stanford's books, pamphlets, and papers, which were then packed into 14 cartons and sent to an investigator's office in the county courthouse. In the entire collection of seized material, investigators did not find any articles related to the Communist Party of Texas. Many of the seized books had been, in fact, intended for sale in Stanford's home business and included "such diverse writers as Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, Theodore Draper, Fidel Castro, Earl Browder, Pope John XXIII, and Mr. Justice Hugo Black."