Meth lab discovered in Keysville
By Elizabeth Billips Associate Editor

Officers found this coffee filter filled with iodine crystals, a common ingredient in meth production.

An employee at an auto parts store helped officers uncover a meth lab operation in a Keysville home.

Since January, the Waynesboro Police Department (WPD) had been getting tips that Mark Winter Sr., 46, might be making methamphetamine.

Among those tips were com- plaints from an employee at a Waynesboro auto parts store who said Winter kept coming in to buy cases of ether engine starter.

Others told police the Keysville man had been making "straw-purchases" of cold medications containing psuedoephedrine - that is, paying other people to go in pharmacies and Wal-Mart to sign for the pills.

Last Thursday, those tips took police, GBI agents and deputies to Winter's home on West Four Points Road.

According to WPD investigator Claude Wade, they found chemicals used for making crystal meth, including hydrogen peroxide, ether, iodine crystals and cold medication blister packs. They also found butane and pyrex dishes which had apparently been used to cook meth.

Winter wasn't home, but another man who was there, Edwin Anthony Hartley, 36, was arrested for manufacturing methamphetamine.

Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Winter and his niece, Amanda Holsomback, who reportedly stays in the residence as well.