A local man, arrested for operating a shake and bake methamphetamine lab at a P Street SE residence Friday afternoon, claimed he took advantage of an open window to get inside the residence while the owner of the house was asleep.
Monroe Lee was taken into custody without incident about 4 p.m. by Ardmore Police Department Narcotics Unit officers and Lighthorse police at a residence located in the 400 block of P Street SE.
Sgt. Kevin Norris, APD Narcotics, said he and other officers went to the residence after Carter County Deputy Matt Dunn received a tip of a possible lab and passed the information on. “We could smell fumes. We went to the door and knocked several times before the owner of the house came out through a garage located on the south side of the house. He appeared to have been asleep. While we were talking to him another man (later identified as Lee) came out of the north portion of the house,” Norris said.
The owner of the residence gave permission for officers to search the residence. Norris said an illicit lab, know as the one pot method or a shake and bake lab was located in a bedroom in the north portion of the house.
And that’s when Lee confessed he hadn’t gotten permission to be in the house.
“He claims he crawled in through a window, cooked the dope and used it without the owner even knowing he was there,” Norris said.
Lee was booked into the Carter County Detention Center pending endeavoring to manufacture methamphetamine and outstanding warrants. But he managed to escape one other possible criminal charge.
“The owner of the house refused to press charges on the burglary. He said Lee was already in enough trouble,” Norris said.
The case is expected to be reviewed and formal charges filed by the district attorney’s office on Monday
