Devil Drug

Oct. 26, 2005

Although meth isn’t the illicit drug of choice here, it has already sent people to burn centers, and even to the grave.
In one tragic instance, a 23-year-old woman lost her life with a man more than twice her age trying to make methamphetamine in a backwoods cabin.
Falmouth resident Daniel Carpenter, 49, had already burned down a garage making meth in January 2004 in the small town of Merritt in Missaukee County. Deputies were investigating him and he knew it. Yet four months later, he was making meth again in a cabin in Aetna Township with Christy Hicks, 23, from Prudenville. This drug is so highly addicting that nothing – not an arrest or even an explosion –seems to stop meth makers and users, said Missaukee County Sheriff Jim Bosscher.
Carpenter was likely using anhydrous ammonia, a highly volatile liquid when mixed with other chemicals. As a precaution, Christy kept her 14-month-old son out in the car – a decision that ultimately saved the child. The explosion blew all the windows out of the cabin. Carpenter and Hicks ran out of the cabin as it went up in flames. Both escaped, but were severely burned. Still they were able to get the toddler out of the car and walk 20 minutes down a two-track to call for help. Hicks died two weeks later, her petite frame ballooning from 110 pounds to 230 pounds from fluids that collected in her body. Carpenter is serving a 20-plus year prison sentence.

UNBELIEVABLE STRENGTH
Grand Traverse County Sheriff Scott Fewins recalled trying to serve a warrant on a 27-year-old man after he tried to run over a Benzie County deputy on Christmas
Eve 2003.
The deputy had stopped him for a traffic violation, which apparently enraged the man. He tried to run over the deputy with his car. He then attempted to steal the deputy’s car – twice – before he ran away. Deputies suspected he was methed up. About a week afterward, Fewins said he and several officers went to a Cedar Run Road home in early January with five or six officers to arrest him. It wasn’t easy.
“He was a big guy anyway, but he was throwing us around like we didn’t exist. It took a few minutes to get handcuffs on him. It was unbelievable the strength he had that night.”

MOTEL LABS
Mobile homes are the cliché destination of meth makers, but motels are also getting hit. Three men were convicted this year after employees at the Holiday Inn in Traverse City found dozens of burn marks in the carpet and sink, where a trio rented a room to make and sell meth last December. One of the men said he just wanted to “turn a quick buck,” according to a Traverse City Record-Eagle article.
In late August of 2003, a man was arrested at a Super 8 Motel in Petoskey after a small explosion and noxious fumes sent as many as 15 people in the room to the hospital. Officers found what they believed to be a meth lab.
In the Evart area, a young man was suspected of dying of heart failure after taking methamphetamine together with an anti-depressant. In fact, the autopsy said he did not die from causes related to meth,
said Undersheriff David Fowler, who feels the whole story wasn’t contained in the autopsy report.

BADLY BURNED
In March of 2001, police investigated an explosion that gutted a small ranch home in Cadillac located in a subdivision within a few blocks of the Civic Center and Lincoln Elementary School. David Bowen lived in the home with Debra Kay Deboer. In the burnt wreckage, detectives found 3,600 Sudafed tablets, cluing them immediately that it was a meth lab.
The house went up in flames after Bowen, 32, had walked across the floor, his meth brew in hand. Unbelievably, the motion of walking caused enough friction for the liquid to burst into flames. Both Deboer and Bowen escaped, but Bowen was burned badly, suffering second and third degree burns that required skin grafts. Bowen wore rubber gloves to protect his bleeding sores at his arraignment.
In one of the most brazen acts of thievery, someone tapped into an ammonia tank at a farm to steal the deadly chemical this summer near Kalamazoo. Because they left the valve open, the ammonia vapors killed 12 beef cattle by the next morning (ammonia vapors scorch the lungs, eyes, nose and mouth). The farmer said that 64 in total either died from the fumes or had to be destroyed. Nearly 40 were sick and blinded, said an Associated Press report.

BACKPACK LAB
This year, among the dozens of arrests was a young man who was trying – without success – to make meth in the Long Lake area.
In May, Aaron Campbell, 30, was carrying a “meth lab” around in his backpack at the Horizon Outlet Mall, Belcher said. He pled guilty to operating and maintaining a lab involving meth and was sentenced 6 to 20 years in prison.
And in one of the area’s most troubling cases, a 38-year-old man selling upper grade, crystal meth from the Chicago area was convicted in August of possession.
“It’s the first instance of imported meth we’ve seen. That one bothers me,” said Det. Lt. Kip Belcher, who oversees the regional drug-fighting effort for the Traverse Narcotics Team.