GUYTON — Having made methamphetamine arrests before on McLaws Road, Effingham County Sheriff’s Office investigators were not surprised to be back in the neighborhood Wednesday with a search warrant.
What did surprise them, though, was how much meth they found in one house.
The sheriff’s office made the largest methamphetamine bust in the county’s history, discovering more than 130 labs and arresting two suspects at a home in the 400 block of McLaws Road.
“We had no idea we would find so many meth labs,” sheriff’s spokesman Detective David Ehsanipoor said. “We expected maybe a few, but we did not expect more than 130.”
To be exact, 136 "one pot" meth labs (plastic bottles containing the ingredients for meth) and 42 "gassing generators" (containers of the finished meth product) were inside the house, according to the sheriff’s office. Investigators also found products to manufacture methamphetamine, including camp fuel and pseudoephedrine.
Daryl Westenbarger, 56, and Donald Wilt, 61, both of Guyton, were charged with trafficking methamphetamine, manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of tools during the commission of a crime. They are being held in the Effingham County Jail without bond.
"This is a huge success for us in the battle to eradicate this dangerous drug from our community,” Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie said. “The operation (Wednesday) will decrease the amount of methamphetamine sold in our area.”
The arrests of Westenbarger and Wilt were the result of a “three- or four-month investigation,” Ehsanipoor said.
“We put surveillance on the residence and started tracking pseudoephedrine logs at local drug stores,” Ehsanipoor said, “and we believed methamphetamine was definitely being cooked at that residence.”
Wednesday’s arrests were the latest in a string of drug busts on McLaws Road in the Pineora community.
“Two years ago, we had the second-largest bust in the county just two doors down, where we found more than 60 labs,” Ehsanipoor said.
In that September 2011 case, three people — Dean Collum, William Collum and Karen Boutwell — were arrested after investigators found 62 “one pot” methamphetamine labs and materials to manufacture meth.
Dean Collum had been arrested a year earlier, along with William Frank Davis, on charges of manufacturing meth at that same address.
Investigators also found a meth lab off McLaws Road in January 2012 and arrested Perry Edwards on several drugs and weapons charges.
“We have a history of drug activity in Pineora, but we also have a lot of good, law-abiding people in that community,” Ehsanipoor said. “We’re doing everything we can to clean up not just meth, but all the drug activity there.”