BUSTED DRUG LAB A 'LETHAL' SITUATION

Investigators Find Explosive Devices

FORT WORTH - Just a few yards from a storefront church and surrounded by
small businesses, two men and a woman hoarded homemade shrapnel bombs and a
potentially explosive stash of chemicals to cook methamphetamine, officials
say.

In the few months since they moved in, the trio kept a low profile and
never said hello to their neighbors in an upholstery store and a motorcycle
customizing shop. Their office space in a rental warehouse building at 3826
Fossil Drive was packed with old computers, possibly to give the appearance
of a computer repair store, investigators say.

The meth lab was protected by a secret door covered by a bookcase. Video
surveillance equipment and a buzzer system provided security and privacy.
There was no sign on the outside.

The Fort Worth Fire Department's bomb squad spent several hours late
Thursday and early Friday looking for booby traps. The squad was called
back Friday to remove two explosive devices. Investigators also found
printers, counterfeiting equipment and fake Social Security cards, a number
of credit cards, a handgun and a shotgun.

The lab was near the intersection of Fossil Drive and North Beach Street in
near northeast Fort Worth, an industrial area filled with strip malls and
small businesses.

"With all these chemicals and the explosive devices around, it was a
potentially lethal combination, enough to blow up this building," said
narcotics Lt. Mike Caley of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Authorities arrested Donald Ward, 41, of Fort Worth and Jeremy Reeves, 27,
of Arlington on suspicion of possession and manufacturing of a controlled
substance at the Fossil Drive warehouse.

Investigators were still checking out the woman's identity Friday.

"We want to make sure that she is who she says she is," said trooper Lonny
Haschel, a DPS spokesman. "She showed us a fraudulent Social Security card
once before."

The investigation unfolded Thursday after a trooper at the DPS' Lake Worth
office questioned a woman who presented a counterfeit Social Security card
to obtain a Texas driver's license.

She tried to run from the building but was caught. A records check found
that she was wanted on an outstanding warrant in Hurst.

The woman told troopers where she lived and where she made the card,
leading authorities to the Fossil Drive warehouse, where they surprised
Ward and Reeves, troopers said.

Investigators worked all day Friday to dismantle the meth lab, tucked away
in about 2,500 square feet of office space in the hidden room. Crime lab
technicians sorted through bottles of acetone and other chemicals,
glassware, pots and other cooking devices.

The two explosive devices were butane gas containers filled with metal
shrapnel and gunpowder and rigged with a fuse, Caley said.

Dayna Fikes, who works at an office in the 3200 block of North Beach
Street, a half-block from the warehouse, said she never noticed anything
unusual.

"That's frightening," she said as authorities took the lab apart. "We had
no idea. We never had any problems here, no break-ins, no weirdos."

Fikes' office abuts New Hope Church, a small storefront adorned with a
large banner proclaiming "A Church with a Vision."

John Hampton, owner of JH Custom Upholstery, the business next to the
dismantled meth operation, said he was shocked when he pulled in for work
Friday morning and saw police swarming.

"You never saw anybody over there," Hampton said, wishing that his previous
neighbor, a Kansas-based construction company, hadn't moved.

He shook his head.

"They've been there for about four or five months, and they never came out
to introduce themselves or say hello," he said.

Methamphetamine, also called "poor man's cocaine," is much cheaper than
cocaine but at least as potent and destructive. Whereas crack cocaine
binges rarely last longer than 72 hours, a meth binge can last two weeks
before a user finally "crashes," drug authorities say.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse warns that meth "is a powerfully
addictive stimulant associated with serious health conditions, including
memory loss, aggression, psychotic behavior and potential heart and brain
damage. It also contributes to increased transmission of hepatitis and
HIV/AIDS."

In recent years, meth labs have shifted in great numbers from the Midwest
to Texas, Caley said. The number of such labs seized in Texas zoomed from
33 in 1997 to 238 in 2000, according to the Drug Enforcement
Administration. So far this year, 113 labs have been busted statewide, the
DEA reports.

Drug investigators say the number of meth labs relying on fast and simple
production methods has mushroomed in urban areas. The labs have
traditionally been operated in remote rural areas far from neighbors who
might get alarmed by suspicious odors.

"We average two to three meth lab busts a month in our area. We're talking
about the red phosphorus cook, the lithium cook and the Nazi cook," said
Caley, who works on a North Texas narcotics task force that covers Tarrant,
Denton, Cook and Johnson counties.

The "Nazi" method, according to one explanation, refers to a cheap and fast
way of making amphetamine that the German army used in the field during
World War II. Another theory is that it was developed by an American white
supremacist who used a swastika logo.