The Clarendon County Sheriff's Office arrested Wednesday a Johnsonville couple after finding an alleged mobile meth lab in the couple's vehicle.
Brett Poston, 42, and Ashley Danielle Cooper, 27, both of 4550 Millhouse Road in Johnsonville, are at the Clarendon County Detention Center awaiting warrants for manufacturing of meth, according to Maj. Kipp Coker with the Sheriff's Office.
According to reports, Deputy 1st Class Ernest Grice Jr. stopped the 1996 Chevrolet pickup truck driven by Poston in the area of U.S. 378 and Puddin' Swamp Road in Turbeville due to it failing to maintain its proper lane. Grice reported odd behavior both from Poston and Cooper, a passenger in the truck.
Grice asked Poston to get out of the truck, and reported nervous behavior on the suspect's part, including his hands shaking, breathing heavily, being overly nervous and stating things before he was asked. During a pat down, Grice found a bulge in Poston's pocket.
Poston told him they were coffee filters that he put there to give to his mother, and that he had forgotten to give them to her in Johnsonville. Grice reported this behavior as odd, and asked Poston if he could search the vehicle and if there was anything illegal in the vehicle.
Poston told him he could not search the vehicle, nor was there anything illegal "that he knew of," reports state.
Dep. Brandon Braxton assisted with the K9 drug dog, Ruin, who ultimately alerted deputies to suspected drugs being within the vehicle.
Deputies found suspected marijuana while searching the vehicle, but also found a green 2-liter plastic bottle inside a purse in the vehicle's console.
"The bottle contained a liquid substance as well as several crystal-like pieces inside the liquid," Grice's report states. "The liquid was thought to be methamphetamine that was still in its cooking stage. Deputies left the bottle in the vehicle and backed away."
Braxton notified the Clarendon County Fire Department and the State Law Enforcement Division, who arrived to handle the toxic material.
Florence County Sheriff's Office drug agent Rollins Rhoads confirmed the material inside the bottle was a liquid consistent in the manufacturing of methamphetamine.
"Also in the rear bed compartment of the truck was a 16-ounce Mountain Dew plastic bottle containing several pieces of a crystal-like material, as well as a black in color plastic funnel that had remnants of a crystal-like substance inside it," Grice wrote in his report.
Deputies and SLED removed several items from the truck "consistent with the making of methamphetamine," including Mortons salt, a long metal object and a laundry detergent bucket, reports state.
