May 19, 2013
A Local 8 Weather Alert has been issued for today. Because of the threat of rain, thunder and even hail, outdoor activities may be disrupted or inconvenienced. What's going on? An upper-level low will be moving across East Tennessee today, creating a more unstable atmosphere.
CHURCH HILL, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Two people in Hawkins County now face charges after sheriff's investigators found an active meth lab in their home.
Police went went to the home of Stanley Hart and LeAnn Reynolds on a narcotics investigation. When they walked into the couple's mobile home park, they smelled a strong chemical odor and narrowed it down to the home where Hart and Reynolds live. Officers knocked on the door and found that two children, ages 10 and 16, also lived there. The couple and their two children were all removed from the mobile home, and officers contacted the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, who immediately took the children into custody. They were taken to a local hospital for medical evaluation.
Narcotics officers then went into the mobile home and found a meth lab in a plastic bottle, and another, older lab on the porch. Officers took them out of the home and safely packaged them to be taken to a hazardous waste disposal. Police also found components used in making meth, including empty pseudoephedrine packs, coffee filters, sulfuric acid, rubber tubing, emptied lithium battery casings and a home-improvised hydrochloric acid generator.
Hart and Reynolds were decontaminated and placed in police custody. Both face charges of initiating the process to manufacture meth and maintaining a dwelling where narcotics are housed, sold or manufactured. Both are in the Hawkins County Jail on $100,000 bond, awaiting an October 29th arraignment.
The couple may also face child abuse charges pending the outcome of a DCS investigation. The Hawkins County Sheriff's Narcotics Department also placed the home under quarantine.
