Copyright 2006 Albuquerque Journal
By BETH HAHN
Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico)
McIntosh firefighters and Torrance County sheriff’s deputies discovered a meth lab after a fire destroyed a shed at 117 Espejo in McIntosh on May 11.
Three McIntosh residents are facing drug charges.
Genevieve Fay, April Green and Charles Garcia were arrested and charged with manufacturing a controlled substance, conspiracy to manufacture a controlled substance, receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle and possession of an altered vehicle.
Garcia is also charged with possessing methamphetamine, and Fay is also charged with failure to pay fines in Bernalillo County.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Heath White said officers discovered a large amount of glassware, containers and a substance that appeared to be methamphetamine in the shed.
While deputies were investigating the shed fire, White said officers detected a “chemical smell” coming from the mobile home on the same property and noticed that one of the vehicles parked near the home had been reported stolen.
One of the residents of the mobile home, when questioned by deputies, did not know the other residents or how long she had lived at 117 Espejo, White said.
“It was very suspicious to us,” he said in a phone interview Friday. “For someone not to know how long they’ve lived somewhere or who else lives there, it’s suspicious.”
Deputies executed a search warrant on the property and found one person hiding inside the mobile home and another hiding in an outbuilding on the property, White said.
Additionally, deputies found what White described as a “substantial” meth lab in the mobile home.
“These people were into a larger scale of cooking,” he said. “The worst tweaker in the world couldn’t consume that much meth.”
White said the glassware used to cook the meth was worth about $15,000. Deputies also found several chemicals, including anhydrous ammonia, that are used to manufacture the drug.
White said the mobile home had two meth labs set up to cook the drug — one with anhydrous ammonia and the other with phosphorus.
“That’s kind of unusual that you would find both set-ups there together,” he said. “Usually, meth labs have one or the other (method) of cooking.”
White said the incident is still under investigation, and that it appears more people other than Fay, Garcia and Green were involved.
“This is one of the bigger labs that I’ve seen in a couple of years,” he said.
More arrests could be made as a result of the fire and discovery of the meth labs, White said.