On Friday, Oct. 2, the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office went to arrest a man wanted on a parole warrant and wound up charging him with manufacturing meth.
Decatur County Sheriff’s investigators and a Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole officer went to a home on Pineywoods Drive at around 11:30 a.m. Friday with the intent of arresting Luis Morales Jr., who was wanted for a parole violation.
Morales, 37, of Bainbridge, was charged with manufacturing meth and possession of meth.
Lt. Brian Donalson of the Decatur County Sheriff’s Office walked onto the home’s back porch and was met by a juvenile male, who said only he and his mother were home. The boy said he needed to go get his mother, but gave Lt. Donalson permission to enter the home. Donalson, who had briefly noticed a man in the hallway behind the back door, saw a man he recognized from a photo as Morales standing in the kitchen.
According to Donalson’s incident report, Morales–who gave officers the name of “Chico”– could not stand still and was having trouble walking upright. Georgia Parole Officer Mark Smith took Morales into custody and frisk-searched. The home’s resident, an adult female, said Morales did not live there and was only visiting. Morales then stated he needed to retrieve his clothes from the residence.
Sheriff’s Investigator Robert Humphrey found a children’s “Power Rangers” backpack lying against a wall and Morales said itbelonged to him. Investigator Humphrey searched the bags for contraband or weapons and found the backpack partly unzipped with a garbage bag inside of it.
Humphrey called Lt. Donalson over and Donalson observed several items typically associated with a meth-making lab inside the garbage bag. Deputies took the backpack outside for safety, however, no active meth lab was found in the backpack. The following were the contents of the backpack. (Please note that listing the contents of a meth-making lab does not give someone the instructions for the complicated meth-making process; rather, our intention is to give readers a “heads-up” on items that may be suspicious when found in bulk in someone else’s possession.)
- 20-ounce Coke bottle containing meth oil (a byproduct of the “one-pot” meth lab)
- a bottle of Liquid Fire
- a bottle of lye drain cleaner
- a small bottle of Coleman fuel
- a cold compress pack containing raw ammonium nitrate
- a package of AA batteries
- several other miscellaneous household items commonly associated with a portable meth lab.
Deputies took a liquid sample from the Coke bottle and then placed the items found in the backpack into Hazmat buckets for safe storage.
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