DRUG'S POWERFUL GRIP CREATES RIFT IN COMMUNITY OF NEWCASTLE

NEWCASTLE, Texas -- Methamphetamine has robbed this town of its unity
and its innocence. The drug, a powerful stimulant that is cheap and
easy to manufacture, has divided families and the community into
opposing factions.

On one side are Mayor Darlton Dyer and his allies. They believe
Newcastle is sinking in a bog of methamphetamine. At the risk of
labeling their town as a den of criminals, they have decided to fight
what they see as a meth epidemic.

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On the other side are the meth cookers, dealers, drug users and all
of their non-using family members who choose to ignore the problem
rather than see loved ones go to prison for drugs.

Newcastle, population 550, is no longer your grandfather's small
town. Law officers say meth also has destroyed the Mayberry-like
ambience in large chunks of rural Texas.

In Young County, an area about 80 miles northwest of Fort Worth, the
newspaper and radio station have conducted a public-service campaign
to educate people about how meth is changing their community.

Young County Sheriff Carey Pettus says meth is the drug of choice for
lower-income rural whites. The dope isn't coming from Mexico, he
said. It is manufactured in "mom and pop" laboratories sprinkled
throughout areas with little, if any, police presence.

Law officers call it Nazi dope because so goes the conventional story
German troops used it in World War II to stay awake during long
battles. American GIs also used amphetamines.

"This Nazi stuff just came out of the blue in the last two years,"
Sheriff Pettus said. "It has proliferated to the point it is just
everywhere."

Newcastle, through Mr. Dyer's efforts, has become the focus of the
drug war in Young County. The following vignettes paint a picture of
a town struggling with methamphetamine.

The Meth Chef

Edward Lee Terry, balding and pudgy, looks harmless enough in his
black-and-white jail uniform. He has lived in a cell at the Young
County Jail for 10 months, awaiting trial on methamphetamine
distribution and possession charges.

Mr. Terry, 40, a convicted thief and forger, has pleaded not guilty
to the specific charges against him, but he acknowledged during a
recent jailhouse interview that he had submerged himself in the meth
culture for more than two years before his arrest in January.

Police allege that he and his associates ran a meth operation in a
shack behind his home in Newcastle.

"I started using about two years ago just as recreation and to keep
up at work," he said. "I was in the oilfield pulling 12-hour shifts."

Mr. Terry said he and his friends got tired of paying for their dope
and decided to make their own. They found recipes for meth on the
Internet.

"I may be a country boy, but I ain't stupid," he said. "Right there
on the computer, it gave us the formula. We figured it out, and as we
done more, it came out better."

Mr. Terry said he, technically, did not cook the meth. He claims that
he taught six or eight other people the recipe and took a cut of the
dope in return for his instruction.

The ingredients he cites from memory sound like a witch's brew of
toxic chemicals.

Nine hundred cold pills containing a stimulant called
pseudoephedrine. Nine lithium batteries. Ten cans of starting fluid.
Salt. A gallon of anhydrous ammonia. Drain cleaner. Hoses, jars, pots
and an electric hot plate. The cooking cost, maybe $100 to $200,
depending on how much of the material you steal.

Mr. Terry scratches his balding head as he calculates the profit. His
tongue works inside his mouth like an agitated snake ñ a nervous
habit left over from the days when he stayed jacked up on meth.

"That oughtta get you four or five ounces and you can sell it for
$1,200 or $1,300 an ounce."

Mr. Terry said he wants people to know he isn't an ogre. One of his
daughters, he proudly said, won homecoming queen at Newcastle High
School this fall. He was in jail and didn't get to see her coronation.

Young County District Attorney Stephen Bristow says he wants to send
Mr. Terry to prison for at least 20 years.

"He's number one on my hit list," Mr. Bristow said.

The Meth Chef's Neighbor

Leon Wilson didn't want his picture taken for this story. He said he
doesn't want every speed freak in West Texas to know what he looks
like.

Mr. Wilson, a 50-year-old grandfather, said he revels in having his
children and grandchildren around the house. He remembers the first
time he smelled the terrible ammonia odor of cooking meth drifting
from the mobile home next door. He didn't know what it was until a
friend told him.

Now, two years later, he knows more than he ever wanted to know about
his neighbor, Mr. Terry, and homemade methamphetamine laboratories.

"It took two years, but we finally got it stopped," said Mr. Wilson,
who works at a tire company in Graham, a town about 10 miles
southeast of Newcastle.

Mr. Wilson and his wife often called the Sheriff's Department when
they smelled the brewing chemicals. But it took deputies too long to
drive from Graham. Somehow, the people next door evaded arrest time
after time, Mr. Wilson said.

"I think they had police scanners and knew the law was coming," Mr.
Wilson said.

The Wilsons worried about their children and grandchildren. What if a
gunbattle broke out next door? What if the clandestine lab blew up?

"My grandkids loved Ed," said Mr. Wilson, "I kept tellin' him he was
gonna have to stop it, that it wasn't right."

Now, Mr. Wilson worries that Ed Terry will get out of jail, come home
and start cooking meth again.

"If that happens, I'm not gonna let him live there," Mr. Wilson said.

The Preacher

The Rev. Chad King is torn. Should he stay in Newcastle and fight the
battle against meth or move on to another church?

After 15 months as pastor of First Baptist Church, he wonders how
much difference one person can make in a town that seems awash in
drugs?

"It's not so bad for me, but it is for my family," he said. He and
his wife, Amanda, have two preschool children. They live in a small
house next to the church.

"My wife won't even stay in the house by herself when I'm gone," said
Mr. King, 25.

Ed Terry lived three blocks away before police arrested him. Mr. King
says he has smelled the distinctive odor of meth emanating from other
houses around town.

"There's not much I can do except go and invite them to the church," he said.

Mr. King said he had trouble sleeping one night. He sat and watched
the street outside as 40 cars came down the street between 2 and 4
a.m. And this is in a town of 550 people.

A schoolteacher recently approached Mr. King about counseling a child
whose parents were using meth. The household had become chaotic and
dirty. The child's grades had fallen.

"Sure, I'm gonna try to help," Mr. King said. "What else can I do?"

The Crusading Mayor

Darlton Dyer has suffered a cruel twist of fate.

Mr. Dyer left Fort Worth in 1993 and moved back to Newcastle, his
hometown. With a young son to raise, he believed a small town might
provide a better family environment with fewer drugs and fewer
juvenile delinquents.

"What a joke," he said. "There's more drugs here than I ever saw in
Fort Worth."

Mr. Dyer, a computer consultant, served on the Newcastle school board
and then got elected mayor. On a recent tour through town, he pointed
out several houses that he said serve as meth labs and sales outlets.

"I think there may be as many as 40 to 45 people involved in it," he said.

Mr. Dyer, 65, said he is determined to root all of them out of
Newcastle, but he acknowledged that the odds are against him.

Newcastle can't afford to hire a police officer. So, the town depends
on sheriff's deputies to patrol the area. But the Sheriff's
Department is limited, too. No one patrols in Newcastle after
midnight, and that is when the druggies jacked up on speed come
outside to do business, he said.

Mr. Dyer said Ed Terry's arrest put a dent in the drug traffic, but
only a dent.

"I'm determined to do what I can," he said. "Some people say I ought
to shut up. That I'm endangering myself and my family. People are
scared. They were just living with the situation. The problem is too
big to live with."

The Grieving Mother

The tears still come easily to Darlene Young when she talks about her
teenage son, Donnie Morgan. "He really knew how to work me," she
said. "The desire for those drugs just took him over."

The last few years had been tough on Mrs. Young and her, husband,
Mike, who live on a ranch just outside Newcastle.

The downhill slide began when their son was arrested for theft and
served four months in a Wichita Falls boot camp for young offenders.

The Youngs said they weren't exactly sure when he began using
methamphetamine, but they are sure it contributed to his decline
after he got out of jail.

"He was borrowing and mooching, but I don't think he had gotten to
the point that he was selling off his belongings to buy the drug,"
Mrs. Young said.

Donnie was living on his own and working at a livestock auction
house. Last spring, he got fired.

Then, drugs turned up in a urine sample required by his probation
office. A warrant was issued for this arrest.

All of that was bad enough, but nothing could have prepared Mrs.
Young for what happened in June.

On a warm afternoon, Donnie was cruising through Graham in his silver
1998 Pontiac Firebird. In his pockets were a package of gum, a
package of candy and 35 cents.

Deputies ran a check on his car and discovered the warrant for his
arrest. They pulled him over just off the courthouse square in Graham.

Donnie, 19, stepped out of the car with a .45-caliber pistol. He put
it to his head and pulled the trigger. He died instantly as
passers-by watched in horror.

To this day, Mr. and Mrs. Young say they don't know what role their
son's drug use played in his decline and death. A toxicology report
showed no drugs in his system when he died.

"I'm sure it played a lot," Mrs. Young said. "Your mind gets mixed up."