Four jailed for two Labor Day weekend meth labs

City police have released additional details from the two meth busts over the Labor Day weekend.

The first took place on Saturday, Sept. 1, and the second the next day. The Saturday incident developed after three individuals took off running when they saw a Harrisburg police officer.

Detective Curt Hustedde said he was investigating a case of trespassing in the 100 block of West Walnut Street around 11:09 a.m., when he saw Kently James Nowakowski walking north in an alley toward him. Beside him Daniel Robinson rode a bicycle and the two were talking as apparent friends.

The former carried a backpack and a second bag with a larger letter "I" over his shoulder. He noticed the backpack and second bag because police had been concerned with a series of home burglaries in the area over the past few months.

As the pair continued past him the woman he was interviewing told him she had seen a woman with the two who took off running before Hustedde noticed them approaching. When he looked back up the alley at Nowakowski he noticed him running off, according to court documents.

While the detective searched for the female another resident of the area called Saline County Central Dispatch at 11:50 a.m. "to advise he observed a male jump a fence and take off on a bicycle."

Hustedde talked with that neighbor who told him, "he thought these guys were breaking into his neighbor's house."

After beginning his search again he found a man on the bike talking to a female.

"As I drove up closer the female ran from me and the male was walking," wrote the detective, in court documents, who added that the male turned out to be Robinson.

He was taken into custody and questioned concerning the past home burglaries. Meanwhile another neighborhood resident in the 500 block of North Webster Street found a similar bag with a large letter "I" in his neighbor's back yard.

When the detective interviewed him the resident who had called 911 earlier approached and told him the person he had seen running earlier had been in that alley.

The bag turned out to include a plastic bottle with tubing, a mason jar with a liquid in it and some aluminum foil, which all together suggested a map lab, according to court documents.

They called in the Illinois State Police Meth Response Team to take charge of the suspected lab. The liquid in the mason jar field tested positive for methamphetamines.

Police arrested Nowakowski, 25, of Harrisburg, the following evening. He was booked in the Saline County Detention Center at 8:45 p.m. Sept. 2, and charged with possession of 138 grams of meth, meth manufacturing and possession of meth manufacturing materials.

Robinson was also arrested on meth charges, but later released with no charges filed as only Nowakowski was seen holding the bag in question, according to Hustedde. As of yesterday he remained in the detention center on $3,000 cash bond.

About an hour after police booked Nowakowski in the Saline County Detention Center Sunday night the second incident started next to a gas pump at the Huck's convenience store at 600 S. Commercial St., according to the police report.

Harrisburg Police Officer Brent Davis pulled into the rear entrance of the station and observed Mac Lands, 34, of Harrisburg, driving a white convertible.

Knowing that Lands didn't have a license as believing he might have an out-of-county warrant out Davis called into central dispatch asking that they check the warrant list. Meanwhile, according to the report, Lands "got out of the vehicle and began doing something in the back seat."

Then after reaching through the passenger window and doing something else that the officer couldn't see, he left the vehicle and walked towards J & J Liquors, according to the report. By that time dispatchers advised Davis that Lands did have a warrant out.

By this time Police Officer Kenny Shires had arrived at the scene. Davis headed for the liquor store while Shires swung around the back of Huck's where he saw Lands behind an outbuilding behind the liquor store, the report indicates.

Lands then started running toward Reed Funeral Home and then across Sloan Street towards the Pankey Branch ditch, the report indicates. The officers caught up with him on the other side of the ditch where he was placed under arrest and Shires transported him to the jail.

Davis then headed back down Sloan Street to Huck's and the white convertible where he found Tara Sherrod, 42, of Carrier Mills getting into the driver's seat. He asked her to step out of the vehicle while he called in a check of the vehicle's ownership which came back as being owned by neither Lands nor Sherrod.

While interviewing Sherrod at the car Davis noticed a water bottle with a yellowish liquid in it and white particles floating in the bottle. Knowing that Lands had been previously arrested on charges of manufacturing meth, Davis continued searching the vehicle and located a plastic sack with a plastic jug inside. When he sat the container upright the dark liquid contents "started to bubble and produced a white material on top."

Suspecting meth at that point, Davis asked Saline County Sheriff's Deputy Craig Williams to take Sherrod into custody. When Officer Shires arrived back at Huck's the two officers then pushed the convertible to the rear of the store property and away from the gas pumps, "due to the volatile nature of these meth labs," Davis wrote in his report.

Again Harrisburg Police called in the state police's Meth Response Team to handle any further search of the vehicle.

While the large plastic jug was determined to just contain homemade liquid soap, a backpack in the trunk contained a variety of meth manufacturing chemicals including muriatic acid, an opened cold pack, drain cleaner, lye and a chemical that resembled Coleman fuel.

The fuel container and a water bottle in the front seat were sent to the crime lab for further testing. Lands was charged with possession of meth manufacturing chemicals as well as the warrant for failure to appear in court. Sherrod was also charged with possession of the meth precursors.

Both Lands and Sherrod remained in the Saline County Detention Center as of Wednesday afternoon, Lands on a $4,075 cash bond and Sherrod on a $3,000 cash bond.