Four people have been charged after a camping trailer parked at Riverbend Campgrounds south of Austin was discovered to be a methamphetamine lab.

Friday, August 25, 2000

Four people have been charged after a camping trailer parked at Riverbend Campgrounds south of Austin was discovered to be a methamphetamine lab.

Trisha Severson, 26, of Austin, Shawn Renee Hinrichs, 22, and Jason Lee Reinartz, 26, who both lived in the trailer, and Phillip Lee Gardner, 18, of Austin, were arrested Thursday and face charges of manufacturing methamphetamine drugs.

"This was a very rudimentary lab," Mower County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Terese Amazi said. "There was nothing sophisticated about it. This is usually what we find."

The Mower County Sheriff’s Department was hosting a training session on detection of meth labs Thursday at the Austin Fire Department. Members of the Southeast Minnesota Drug Task Force were in Austin and present when an anonymous caller told Amazi of the presence of a suspected meth lab in the campground along the Cedar River off Highway 105.

When investigators arrived at the scene, they discovered the suspicious trailer parked away from other campers. Upon investigating the activities inside the trailer, they discovered the occupants in the process of manufacturing the drug.

Three of the suspects ran, but were caught immediately by law officers who surrounded the area.

No injuries were reported and no weapons or large amounts of money were found. A technician dressed in protective clothing entered the trailer as a precaution. Samples were taken from the ground around the trailer, where the raw materials had been dumped. Today, Bill Buckley, Mower County’s environmental health services director, is taking soil samples to check for possible contamination.

The raid took place at 12:45 p.m. Thursday and Chief Deputy Amazi praised the cooperation of all the law officers participating in the raid.

There have been two other meth lab raids in Mower County: one at LeRoy and another last year in a garage along 10th Drive SE, according to Amazi.

Two or three fires have been attributed to the possible manufacture of raw materials needed in making meth. In at least two of those fire incidents, Reinartz has been present, law officers said.

"He has at least been present at two of the first related to meth manufactured and we also received information from Faribault County that he was cooking there, but had left the area prior to Thursday’s raid," Amazi said.

According to the chief deputy, because of the availability of all of the materials used to manufacture meth drugs in any form, "You could say it is now the drug of choice in Mower County."