Huge Meth Bust In Montpelier

Accord­ing to law enforce­ment, a metham­phet­a­mine bust ear­lier this week, on Wednes­day in Mont­pe­lier, will go down as one of the largest busts ever in county his­tory.

At a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day after­noon, Sher­iff Steve Towns said 29 year old John Ken­nel of Bryan is under arrest fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of what he termed “a very well orga­nized oper­a­tion.“

The Sher­iff said an upstairs bed­room at the third house west of County Road 10 on County Road N-30, was used for pro­duc­tion and assem­bly while sup­plies were stored on the back porch. There were seven active labs in the kitchen freezer.

Townes said the pro­duc­tion line had been set up in a shed near the house dur­ing warmer weather.

It all was uncov­ered whtn deputies served a Williams County bench war­rant to Ken­nel, charg­ing him with domes­tic vio­lence. That’s when they noticed the smell of the meth man­u­fac­tur­ing oper­a­tion. They got a search war­rant, and the rest hap­pened from there.

Ken­nel was arrested on the domes­tic vio­lence war­rant, and also charged with vio­lat­ing a tem­po­rary pro­tec­tion order.

Oth­ers in the house, who were also arrested in con­nec­tion with the meth oper­a­tion include:

56 year old Julie Austin of Mont­pe­lier; 28 year old Saman­tha Huff, with no per­ma­nent address; and 22 year old Brit­tanie Neill of West Unity. Charges are also pend­ing for seven others.