Busted: meth labs seized in Pell City before drugs hit streets

Published 10:27 am Friday, April 23, 2010

Two people are being held without bond after they were caught with four rolling methamphetamine labs, drugs and paraphanelia.

Just after 10 p.m. last Tuesday, a Pell City Police officer stopped a vehicle for an equipment violation and after noticing that one of the occupants appeared under the influence of drugs, called for backup.

Officer Dallas Fulmer made the stop on the eastbound on-ramp to Interstate 20. The intoxicated female in the passenger seat, Jennifer Ruth Glenn, 29, Trussville, gave him reason to call narcotics officers.

The driver, Clay Willis Kerr, 28, of Muscadine, Ala., told told the officers on the scene he had “some stuff under the seat” of his driver-side chair.

Narcotics Officers Richard Woods and Franklin Greene went to work processing the scene. Under the driver’s side seat they found the finished product of a methamphetamine lab.

The search of the rest of the car yielded three more meth labs and one that was ready to cook the deadly drug.

In the rear of the vehicle a suitcase that contained a black bag with a meth lab inside had the words “property of Jennifer” written in White-Out on the bag. Other bags found in the trunk of the vehicle were found to contain a small amount of marijuana, several bags of methamphetamine and the drug GBL, a derrivitive of floor stripper, which renders the user in a state of hightened intoxication as well as inducing side effects such as severe brain damage, stroke and death. Another container with a finished methamphetamine powder was found with the words “property of Jennifer” written on it.

One lab was ready to process chemicals that could be quickly turned into meth. The three others were were usable, according to officers.

Kerr is charged with manufacturing in the first degree, which could yield a sentence of 10 to 20 years to life. He also faces unlawful manufacturing in the first degree as well as possession of a controlled substance.

Glenn is being held on manufacturing in the first degree and possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug parephenalia as well as a misdemeaner charge of having mariujana in her posssession.

Both are being held with no bond in St. Clair County custody.

“I have to give kudos to Dallas,” Woods said. “He did an outstanding job and with him being aware and his alertness to the situation definitely paid off on this one.”

Officer Woods said he and Officer Green, who received the officer of the year award in 2009, have seen a decline in the number of labs over the past six months; but noted that manufacturers “still leave the door open” for the drug to be made and distributed throught the area.