Methamphetamine lab busts have become fairly commonplace in Hawkins County since the meth epidemic hit two years ago, but county narcotics officers crossed into new territory with a lab bust Wednesday in a Rogersville population center.
Wednesday's Hawkins County Sheriff's Department raid on an apartment in the Rogersville Housing Authority was the first time authorities have confiscated a meth lab in such a densely populated area.
HCSD Chief Detective Ronnie Lawson said Wednesday that the lab confiscated at 1030 Locust St. near Hawkins County Memorial Hospital was the less dangerous red phosphorous type, as opposed to the highly toxic anhydrous ammonia type lab more commonly found.
Still, the potential for an explosion and injury or even death of innocent bystanders in the immediate area of the apartment existed, Lawson said.
"Any time you've got a mixture of chemicals and trying to process methamphetamine, you've always got danger," Lawson said.
Deputies received a tip that there was a meth lab at the apartment at 1030 Locust St. and upon arriving Wednesday received permission from the tenant, Donna Lynn Williams, 35, to search the apartment. Aside from finding four adults and three children in the apartment, the HCSD Narcotics Unit allegedly found a meth lab hidden in a bedroom.
"They were getting ready to cook it on a flat-top griddle in the bedroom," Lawson said. "The griddle was hot, and all the products were inside the bedroom."
Although no drugs were confiscated, Lawson said there was evidence of a recent "cook" in the apartment including empty brake fluid containers, liquid heat, iodine, peroxide and other materials used in meth manufacturing.
Lawson said Sheriff Warren Rimer's Narcotics Unit has received training in dealing with meth labs in densely populated areas. Had it been an anhydrous ammonia lab, the immediate neighborhood would have been evacuated during cleanup.
In this case, however, deputies made sure the adjacent apartments were empty before proceeding with the cleanup.
Arrested in the raid was Williams along with Donald Wayne Sellers, 36, 527 Center Pumpkin Valley Road, Rogersville; David Clyde Massengill, 29, Little Pumpkin Valley Road, Eidson; and Patrice Marie Massengill, 31, 735 Little Pumpkin Valley Road, Eidson.
All four were charged with manufacturing meth, felony possession of drug paraphernalia, and three counts of child endangerment.
Assistant District Attorney Doug Godbee said Wednesday there is a possibility that the four could also face felony reckless endangerment charges stemming from the potential of injury or death to neighbors and bystanders had the meth lab exploded. Most often meth labs are found in rural areas away from the public, and this is the first case in Hawkins County involving a lab being found in a population center.
"It's something that we're going to have to investigate further," Godbee said. "We were the first county in Tennessee to obtain a homicide conviction stemming from a meth lab explosion, but that took place in a very rural area, and the victims were involved in the meth manufacturing operation. Finding a lab in the middle of an apartment complex is new territory for us, and it is scary when you've got a lot of kids around and a lot of people.
"We'll have to be able to prove that the defendants' actions created a risk (of injury or death) to their neighbors."
All four suspects and the three children - ages 8, 10, and 14 - were decontaminated, and the children were turned over to the Department of Children's Services, Lawson said.
At the time of Wednesday's raid Sellers and David Clyde Massengill were free on bond from Scott County, Va., where they'd been charged June 1 with conspiracy to manufacture meth and conspiracy to violate the Drug Control Act.
All four suspects were lodged in the Hawkins County Jail without bond pending arraignment Monday in Hawkins County Sessions Court.
This was the 14th meth lab confiscated in Hawkins County so far in 2005.
Bookmarks