US KY: Series: Meth - A Rising Blight (Part 2G)

METH SCOURGE IS SCATTERED IN REGION KNOWN FOR ISOLATION

Some Hit Hard While Neighbor Unaffected

McKEE, Ky.- Jackson County's meth problem turned deadly in April 2003 when
a makeshift lab exploded, killing 32-year-old Jeffrey Lee Hacker and
gutting his home.

The three survivors were arrested, bringing to five the number of people
indicted in the county on methamphetamine-related charges up to that time.
In little more than a year, 29 more people would face such charges.

Thirty-one percent of Jackson County's entire circuit criminal caseload
over that period involved alleged meth-related crimes - the fourth-highest
percentage in the state after McLean, Hancock and Webster counties.

Next door in Lee County, meth apparently was not a big problem. Only one
meth lab had been found, in 2001, a case in which two people were charged
with attempting to make the drug. Similarly, when Leslie County had 16
meth-related indictments in 2003-04, neighboring Perry County had none.

A Courier-Journal analysis of circuit court records since 1998-99 shows
meth has cut a steady but erratic path through Eastern Kentucky, skipping
some counties so far but overrunning others.

Experts say the phenomenon is most attributable to the insular nature of
the region, where rugged hollows and mountains separate counties.

Kevin Raleigh, a native of Eastern Kentucky who teaches geography at the
University of South Carolina, said the pattern is understandable.

"Traditionally, there was not a whole lot of need to go out of the county
for anything," Raleigh said. "A woman would no sooner marry a man from the
next county over than a man from the moon."

Raleigh said improved infrastructure has led to more mobility in recent
years, but not enough to completely change that tradition.

George Sungy, a supervisor with the Appalachia High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area, a federal task force based in London, said meth cooks in
individual counties learn to make the drug, then share the secret with a
select few and keep the practice close to home.

"The meth cookers are usually a loose group of friends or family who stay
in one area and form a loose-knit organization," Sungy said.

"That might be why meth just stops for a while in one place before it hits
another county."

Jackson County Sheriff Tim Fee said the rise of meth users and makers can
be traced to a closely knit group at work in his county for the year and a
half since the explosion in Annville.

"What you have is a circle of people who help each other, and it keeps
getting bigger," Fee said. "The only way to beat meth is to completely
break up the circle."

Fee said meth cooks feel safer staying local.

"If they leave the county, they don't know who's undercover and who's not,"
he said.

Jamey Tillery, 23, of McKee, said he was part of the Jackson County meth
circle until he and two friends were arrested in August on charges of
manufacturing meth on a farm.

"My friends have made meth, and they're all here," Tillery said in an
interview from the Jackson County Jail. "We all stayed together and learned
from each other."

While cooking and taking meth, Tillery said, he lost almost 150 pounds and
became increasingly violent. As his problem grew, so did his circle of meth
friends, he said.

All the while, the group confined itself to Jackson County, except for
trips to Laurel County to buy supplies of Sudafed and other meth ingredients.

Tillery said he felt helpless to prevent his own self-destruction as his
addiction grew.

"I thought it was jail or hell, and I was ready to go to hell," Tillery said.

Instead he is in jail and awaiting trial.