MOBILE METH COOKS FLOCK TO HOTELS

Motel Owners, Drug Investigators Cracking Down On Drug Labs

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Reed Skelton was relaxing in his hotel room on a
Saturday night, drinking beer and watching porn, when the
methamphetamine he was brewing exploded in the bathroom.

The flash fire blew the window out of his room and severely injured
him. In the chaos that followed, 156 guests were evacuated from the
Baymont Inn and the sprinklers went off, contributing to about
$120,000 in damage to the motel, police Sgt. Mike Lauderdale said.

As the number of meth labs has spread in recent years from the West
Coast and Southwest and infiltrated states such as Indiana and
Kentucky, they are being found more in hotel rooms - perfect for "meth
cooks" on the go.

They are found not just in seedy motels but also in chain hotels that
cater to business people and vacationers - much like the Baymont Inn,
which is in a newly developed area on Evansville's west side.

"It does create a mess, and to be honest with you, I'm surprised more
people haven't gotten blown up or burned by these things," said
Spencer County Sheriff Sheldon Tharp, who has found at least two meth
labs in motels in his county this year.

To get a room, the "cooks" often use stolen identification or pay with
drugs or cash for the use of someone else's ID, said Armand
McClintock, who oversees the Indianapolis office of the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration.

Inside, the fumes from the cooking meth - made mostly with household
chemicals such as drain cleaner - can be lethal, and the labs can explode.

The waste from the production process is toxic. For every pound of
drug made, there are typically five pounds of hazardous waste,
McClintock said. The cooks usually get rid of it by pouring it down a
sink or toilet.

There are other hazards awaiting law-enforcement officers who raid
such labs. Among them is the number of weapons the cooks tend to
carry, but firearms are not the extent of it, Tharp said.

In one case, a Doberman pinscher met Spencer County Detective Jeff
Meredith when he responded to a call in February at the Scottish Inn
north of Dale, off Interstate 64 about 70 miles west of Louisville.

A woman fled the room, but a man on the bed had a sawed-off shotgun at
his feet - and there was a pistol under his mattress and a rifle
leaning against the heater, Meredith said.

There was no shooting, though, which was fortunate.

"They had more firepower than we had," Tharp said.

Brad Meyers, the general manager of the motel, now called the 231
Ambest Plaza Motel, no longer has problems with meth cooks. He said
the staff is more diligent in looking for signs of meth cooking and
they report suspicious behavior.

One sign is the smell of anhydrous ammonia, commonly used to make the
drug. Another is the presence of broken light bulbs, which serve as
containers for mixing ingredients.

The staff also started to examine whether local people were
frequenting the motel, he said.

"That's something that immediately raises eyebrows," Meyers said.
"That person very well could be doing something illegal."

Sgt. Lauderdale, who is with the Evansville-Vanderburgh Joint
Narcotics Task Force, said the explosion last year at the Baymont Inn
could have been much worse had the fire hit several jars of flammable
liquid in the room.

"It would've taken out the back side of the motel," he said.

Skelton, 24, was hospitalized with severe burns. After his release, he
pleaded guilty to meth-related crimes stemming from the explosion and
was sentenced in January to seven years in prison, to be followed by
three years in a drug-treatment program.

Tom Schroeder, a national spokesman for Baymont Inns, said the
explosion appeared to have been an isolated incident and did not
warrant a change in policy within the chain.

Lauderdale said his task force found four meth labs, including that
one, at hotels or motels last year. This year, officers responding to
a report of domestic violence found one at the Holiday Inn Express at
I-64 and U.S. 41 in Vanderburgh County.

Authorities raided 93 meth labs last year in Vanderburgh County and
1,260 statewide. That compares with six labs found in Indiana in 1995.

Of the 1,260 labs, 17 were found in hotels or motels, said Sgt. Todd
Ringle of the Indiana State Police.

Last year, 10,305 meth labs discovered across the nation were reported
to the DEA, 309 of them found in hotel and motel rooms, according to
the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center in Texas. The numbers are not
complete because not all labs are reported to the DEA.

Officers with Lauderdale's task force have met individually with hotel
owners and managers to teach them how to respond should they find a
meth lab.

Across the Ohio River, the Kentucky Hotel and Lodging Association had
the Kentucky State Police speak on the same topic at one of the
association's annual meetings. Last year, 10 labs were found in
Kentucky hotel or motel room, according to the state police.

One concern for hotel owners is how to clean a room where there was a
meth lab, said Ray Gillespie, executive director of the association.
Sometimes, curtains and carpet have to be stripped and the room gutted.

"Apparently, normal household cleaning methods won't work," Gillespie
said.

Meyers, of the Ambest Plaza motel near Dale, said meth is a problem
for hotel owners and the public alike.

"We're all in this together," he said. "If everyone takes steps and
encourages their staff to know what to look for, they won't have these
kinds of problems because they'll be able to report them immediately."