BRIAN KEITH DAVIS JR. - FROM GENERATION UNTO GENERATION - WHEN METH HITS HOME

Brian Keith Davis Jr.'s Mother, Father And Brother Have All Been Arrested
In Meth Cases, And Keith, 17, Is Serving A Five-year Term For Making The Drug.

Brian Keith Davis Jr. slouches in a chair in a white cinder-block room in a
youth detention center.

Even though he has agreed to be interviewed -- "Ain't nothing else to do,"
he says -- he's far from talkative. He mumbles, "I don't know," and shrugs
at certain questions, especially about his mother.

The 17-year-old, whose family calls him "Little Keith," was arrested in
July and pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court to manufacturing and possessing
methamphetamine with intent to sell it. The judge sentenced him to five
years. He served three months at the Macon Regional Youth Detention Center
and was transferred this month to the Sumter Youth Development Campus in
Americus. By the time he gets out, he might be old enough to buy a beer.

Keith's mother also was arrested after police raided their trailer home
near the town of Forsyth, which is north of Macon. Paula Davis, 37, got out
on bail and is facing charges of manufacturing and possessing
methamphetamine with intent to sell it. She denies the charges, though she
says she has used the illegal stimulant.

Keith says he started using methamphetamine when he was about 15. He had
dropped out of school after seventh grade and occasionally worked at
construction sites. By the time he was 16, he was using the drug every day
in his room at home, in his '73 Ford pickup, in the woods, at parties,
wherever, he says.

He smoked it, snorted it, and injected it into his arm.

Keith learned to manufacture the drug, he says. He would carry his supplies
- -- including ether, cold pills and batteries -- deep into the woods behind
his family's trailer. He would cook methamphetamine in a bucket.

The trailer where Keith lived sits off a red-dirt path and has a broken
window. Stray cats seek shade underneath it, and the yard is cluttered with
carpet scraps, a bucket and a car battery.

Paula, just up from a nap, sits on a plastic cooler, barefoot. "I'm
pleading not guilty," she says. "I wouldn't even know how to make it."

But she knows how to use it. With some prodding, she admits she would go to
her room, away from her three children, including a 12-year-old girl, and
eat the drug. "Just put it in your mouth and swallow," she explains.

But she insists she never used methamphetamine in front of her children or
with them, that they didn't know she used it, and that she doesn't use it
anymore.

Police tell a different story.

"It's just a family deal," says Martin Ursitti, a narcotics investigator
with the Monroe County sheriff's office. Keith's older brother, James
Davis, 18, also was arrested in the raid and charged with making and
selling methamphetamine.

"She knew they were making it," Ursitti says. "She told me she had tried to
get them to quit making it."

In Paula's nightstand, police found three bags containing methamphetamine,
an aspirin box containing the drug, and syringes, a police report says. "I
asked Mrs. Davis if she smoked meth, and she stated no, she 'shoots up,' "
Ursitti wrote.

Paula told police she did not get her methamphetamine from her sons.

Keith says the Juvenile Court judge tried to get him to implicate his
mother, but he wouldn't. He also insists his mother didn't turn him on to
the drug.

"She knew I was on drugs," he says. "I mean, she didn't know, but she
noticed. She told me I was going to get locked up. But I didn't listen."

On Nov. 6, Paula was arrested again at their trailer and faces additional
charges of attempting to make methamphetamine and possession of the drug.
She is in the Monroe County Jail. Her husband, Brian Keith Davis, 37, and
son James also were arrested in the raid, according to the Monroe County
sheriff's office.

These days, Keith goes to classes and says he wants to get a GED. He wants
to get back into working construction when he gets out. He misses
cigarettes, meals at Red Lobster and his family.

He says he regrets the hold the drug had on him. "I wanted to quit," he
says. "But you can't just quit."

[SIDEBAR]

TODAY'S ARTICLES

. Meth's forsaken children
. Paul Standridge: The struggle to trust again
. Chelton Hicks: A cruel way to die
. Daniel Carr: Trapped in a parent's nightmare
. Ansleigh Davis: Yearning to become mom's child again
. Brian Keith Davis Jr.: From generation unto generation