WOMEN FIND, BRING METH LAB TO POLICE

Two women who found parts of a methamphetamine lab Saturday evening while
walking their dogs in rural Shawnee County did what they thought was best
- -- and brought the lab directly to police headquarters.

Police thought otherwise.

"We've had individuals bring bombs here in years past, but this is the
first meth lab that's been brought in," said Lt. Randy Listrom, of the
Topeka Police Department, as he stood at the front of the Law Enforcement
Center, 320 S. Kansas. "We prefer that they be left where they're found,
but we can make this work."

A few feet away was a small car with an open trunk, out of which Judy
Osbourn, of Topeka, had pulled the remnants of a meth lab she and her
sister had found earlier in the evening.

"It was pretty much scattered all over," Osbourn said of what she saw while
walking with her sister, Sue Gore, near S.W. 10th and Hoch.

The women had dropped off Osbourn's daughter at a birthday party at about
6:30 p.m. and decided they would walk their dogs while awaiting the end of
the party. Osbourn said she took a plastic bag to pick up trash along the way.

When Osbourn, a social worker, came across empty beer bottles, containers
of lighter fluid, plastic tubing and a small charcoal grill, she said she
knew exactly what she was looking at. And she thought she knew what to do
with it.

"I'm a good Samaritan," she joked two hours later at police headquarters,
where officers were deciding what to do with the lab.

Listrom said that in an ideal situation, a meth lab shouldn't be moved --
both to preserve the crime scene and to prevent contact with the hazardous
by-products created by meth production. As the lab was being processed, he
said the woman's car probably would need to be decontaminated. If someone
finds a lab, Listrom said, he or she should leave it alone and call police.

The Shawnee County Sheriff's Office took over the investigation because the
lab was found outside the city limits.