TENANT'S JUNK SPARKS METH INVESTIGATION

The Abandoned Items Were First Thought To Be Part Of A Meth Lab

What police and fire investigators said might be the makings of a
methamphetamine laboratory inside a Sexton Avenue house were nothing more
than old welding equipment, chemistry textbooks and radioactive warning
stickers, according to an MU student who rented the house last year.

Around 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, police and firefighters arrived at a vacant
house at 707 W. Sexton Ave. after two maintenance workers reported finding
suspicious materials that could be used for radioactive explosives inside
the house.

Neighbors living within a 300-foot area around the home were evacuated as
officers from the Columbia Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Response
Unit sent a remote-controlled robot and a bomb squad inside the house. A
portion of Sexton Avenue was closed to traffic and residents until about 2
p.m. Tuesday.

Police and fire investigators found nothing illegal inside, but recovered
radioactive warning stickers, a textbook that could be used to make bombs,
starter fluid, batteries, electrical cords, charcoal fluid, a propane gas
tank and cold medication.

Investigation closed with no arrests made Columbia Police Capt. Marvin
McCrary said no arrests were made. The police investigation was closed late
Tuesday evening, he said.

"We found things that could be used to make meth, but none of it is
illegal," McCrary said. "We found no meth inside."

MU senior Dustin Newman, 24, said he rented the house beginning in June as a
work studio and storage space. Newman, a biochemistry/microbiology major,
said he moved most of his belongings out of the house about four weeks ago.
He said he left the items police confiscated Tuesday because he knew the
house was scheduled to be demolished soon.

Newman said he used to be a professional welder and still manages a local
record label that packages promotional radioactive warning stickers inside
its mail-order compact discs and records. Some of the notebooks left inside
the house contained equations from old college classes, he said.

Student sees investigation as absurd Newman said it was amusing to see
television reports that police were investigating his former apartment as a
possible meth lab.

"I thought it was kind of absurd and it kind of made me laugh," Newman said.
"(Police) could have just as easily said you have the components of a meth
lab in your own house."

The suspicious odors that investigators smelled inside probably came from a
leaky gas stove that the landlord had failed to repair, Newman said.

McCrary said investigators did not overreact by evacuating the block.

"It's better to err on the side of caution than not do enough," he said.