Task force leader: Home meth lab like ‘small bomb’

By JOE GORMAN

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The toys scattered across the front and back yards and porch of 1931 Manhattan Ave. probably would not lead passers-by to believe the home was in danger of exploding – or that methamphetamine was being made there.

Yet members of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force who served a search warrant about 8 p.m. Wednesday at the West Side home, where six children also lived, said they found methamphetamine being produced.

Three people were arrested, and Rob Whitted of the task force, who headed up the investigation, said the danger in the home was real.

“Basically, what we’re handling there is a small bomb,” Whitted said.

Facing drug charges in the Mahoning County jail are Glenn Lambert, 37; his wife, Nicole Lambert, 26; and Mark Cartwright, 36.

Whitted also said six children ranging in age from 2 to 13 were at the house. They were given to a relative, but the county Children Services Board also is investigating.

Besides the toys, there also was a set of security cameras on the side door, which look new and are in sharp contrast to the ramshackle condition of the outside of the home.

Whitted did not say what prompted the investigation that led to the search warrant, but he did say task force members found two separate labs, or “cooks,” and they were active when they arrived.

One cook was found in a chimney in the basement. Chemicals were stored in there to make methamphetamine oil.

The other cook was found in a car in the driveway. The chemicals from the first bottle were transferred into that bottle and others were added, and those chemicals would then produce a powder than can be snorted or melted down and injected with a needle.

Both cooks consisted of two-liter bottles, Whitted said. There also was evidence of an abandoned cook in the backyard of a vacant house next door, Whitted said.

Whitted said that while heroin and fentanyl are currently the drugs of choice in the area, there are a lot of meth users. He said the opiate users actually helped the trio in the Manhattan Avenue home when it came to buying cold medicine, one of the key ingredients used in making methamphetamine. Whitted said because state law says a person can buy only a certain amount of cold medicine within a specific time frame, methamphetamine cookers will pay heroin addicts to buy cold medicine for them. The heroin addicts then use the money they earned from buying the cold medicine to buy more heroin, Whitted said.

It took task force members until about midnight Wednesday to finish up at the home and clean up, Whitted said. Whitted said he and two other task force members are certified to handle and dispose of methamphetamine cooks, which are made up of hazardous materials.

Whitted said the chemicals that were seized are taken to a special site designated by the state for their disposal, and the state then destroys them. Unlike in most drug cases when drugs that are seized are not destroyed until after a case is over in the court system, chemicals used to make methamphetamine are too volatile to keep around, so they are destroyed as quickly as possible, Whitted said. He said pictures were taken of everything that was found so they can be used in court.

A neighbor mowing his lawn Thursday who did not want to give his name said the Lamberts had lived in the home for only a few weeks.

Whitted said this is only the second meth lab he can remember in the city in recent years. He said one was found a couple of years ago on North Brockway Avenue on the West Side.