ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
note: above
Drug agents weren't paying much attention to an old tobacco barn hidden in foliage down by the Pigg River in southeast Franklin County.
On Wednesday and Thursday, they had found 1,450 marijuana plants growing around the barn, which is located on a rugged piece of land near Peckerwood Level. The agents then began the task of cutting them down and baling them for evidence.
Don Lincoln, who heads the Roanoke office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said another agent thought it odd that there appeared to be no apparent use for a bunch of hay bales stacked around the barn.
A short time later, Franklin County Sheriff's Investigator Fred Jamison noticed an odor - which many at the scene compared to cat urine - as he worked near the barn.
It was the smell of phenylacetic acid, which is used to make amphetamines - a large group of synthetic drugs that are similar to cocaine in their effects, but longer-acting.
The hay, it turned out, was helping to camouflage one of the most sophisticated amphetamine laboratories ever discovered in this region.
Two brothers, Ronnie and Eddie Meeks, and Tracy Hancock, Eddie Meeks' girlfriend, were arrested Thursday and charged with manufacturing amphetamines, growing marijuana and conspiracy to distribute both. The three lived on the property in a house that was searched by drug agents, investigators said.
Their house, a double-wide trailer that had been added onto several times, contained such luxury items as a tanning bed and a hot tub, Lincoln said.
Agents also took note of several Harley-Davidson motorcycles, an antique car collection, a boat and a jet ski on the property.
The Internal Revenue Service, which assisted in the investigation, had discovered that the Meekses' lifestyle didn't seem to match their bank accounts.
Eddie Meeks, 38, recently reported an average income of $7,800 from 1989-95, and Ronnie Meeks, 40, reported no income at all during that period, according to a federal affidavit.
"They were living like kings," Lincoln said.
Franklin County Sheriff's Investigator Ewell Hunt, a member of the multijurisdictional DEA task force that worked the case, said the Meeks brothers and Hancock sat and watched as agents searched on Wednesday and Thursday.
The suspects were even chatty, Hunt said.
While drug agents were impressed by the expensive items they found, they were even more impressed by the sophistication of the amphetamine lab.
Its water and power lines had been hidden underground, running almost three hundred yards to another nearby building. The ground above the lines was undisturbed, leading agents to believe that the lab had been there for some time.
There was also a ventilation system inside the barn - the chemicals used to make amphetamines can be extremely hazardous - and a special card-key lock on the trap door that provided access to the two-story lab.
Agents found chemicals, stainless steel countertops and refrigerators inside the barn.
Inside the Meekses' home, other evidence was collected, including several small packages of amphetamines, small quantities of marijuana, rolling papers and a bottle filled with marijuana seeds, according to the affidavit.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ERIC BRADY STAFF Investigators search the barnby CNBThursday, which housed the most sophisticated amphetamine lab ever
found in the region. color
2. $HILIP HOLMAN STAFF Ronnie Meeks (from left, in handcuffs), Eddie
Meeks and Tracy Hancock are led to their arraignment Thursday.
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