Three meth suspects arrested, two connected to an earlier bust

By Elizabeth Richardson
The Times-Herald

Three suspects were arrested in a methamphetamine raid on Thursday, two of them connected to Tuesday's meth raid on Price Road in north Coweta.

Kevin Eugene Banks, Michael Ryan Fields and Wendy Lee Smith have all been arrested and charged with manufacturing methamphetamine -- a felony -- felony possession of meth and one count possession marijuana, according to Coweta Sheriff's Office Investigator Edwin Rivera.

The suspects were arrested Thursday afternoon at 18 Bittersweet Lane, located off Franklin Highway, by members of the Coweta Crime Suppression Unit's Narcotics Task Force.

According to Rivera, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's West Georgia Task Force had an informant make a meth buy from Banks at the Bittersweet Lane residence. The task force then contacted the Coweta County Sheriff's Office to keep them informed.

Unbeknownst to the GBI, Banks was already a suspect in the ongoing investigation following Melissa Ann Black's arrest on Tuesday for possession of meth and criminal attempt to manufacture meth. Banks also had two active warrants for his arrest out of the sheriff's office.

According to Rivera, the sheriff's office launched an independent investigation and determined that the homeowner at 18 Bittersweet Lane -- Fields -- also had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear.

Investigators served the arrest warrants for Fields and Banks on Thursday around 4 p.m. at the residence on Bittersweet Lane. On the scene, police saw smoking devices for drugs in plain sight and smelled recently burned marijuana. Fields, Banks and Banks' girlfriend, Smith, were all at the residence when the warrants were served, according to Rivera.

The sheriff's office obtained a search warrant, and inside the residence officers found meth, a small amount of marijuana and numerous smoking devices for both meth and marijuana. In a detached garage on the property, investigators found a meth lab consisting of two already spent "cooks" -- or bottles used as meth labs to manufacture the drug -- and three to four gas generators used to produce the gas necessary to get meth to its finished form, according to Sgt. Pat Lyons. One "cook" is capable of producing a half to a whole ounce of meth, said Lyons.

Additional warrants will be taken for Banks and Smith for their involvement in the meth raid from Tuesday, according to Rivera. Both will be charged with criminal attempt to manufacture meth. Both were spotted with Black on Tuesday at Wal-Mart attempting to purchase items that happen to be ingredients for making meth, according to the investigator.

Banks and Smith were not arrested on Tuesday because they had left the Price Road home before investigators executed the search warrant.

In response to complaints from the homeowner at 33 Price Road -- Jimmy Black -- Coweta Sheriff's Office Sgt. John Kennedy explained on Friday that the homeowners have not been criminally charged in the meth raids.

"There is nothing to disprove that they were not trying to correct the issues [at 33 Price Road], including cleaning up the property and the activity that had been taking place," said Kennedy. "The homeowners have been very cooperative in the investigation."