14 DAY TRIAL // It might not explicitly say so in the Bible, but it's safe to assume that cooking methamphetamine in the house of the Lord is a big no-no. More so since, long before landing you in trouble with the Big Guy, pulling one such stunt will surely get you arrested.
Earlier this week, two women learned this lesson the hard way. Thus, it was this past Wednesday that Judith L. Hemken and Tiffany L. Burton were taken into police custody after somebody chanced to find the meth lab that they had set up inside a church.
Information shared with the public by the officers in charge of handling this case says that the methamphetamine laboratory run by these two ladies was located in the basement of a rural church in Montgomery County, Illinois, US.
By the looks of it, it was a member of this small congregation that figured out that something was off and decided to pay a visit to the church basement. He caught sight of one of the two women, who at that time was busy cooking meth, and alerted authorities.
Soon enough, officers arrived at the scene and took both 53-year-old Judith L. Hemken and 26-year-old Tiffany L. Burton into custody. On Thursday, the two women were still imprisoned. Provided that they are eventually released on bail, they will nonetheless have to answer for their actions in front of a court of law.
This is yet to be confirmed, but police officers have reasons to believe that the two women entered the church and its basement through a door that, for some reason, was unlocked. How it was that they managed to set up a meth lab without having anyone noticing what they were up to remains a mystery.
Word has it that, after being trialled, Judith L. Hemken and Tiffany L. Burton both risk being sentenced to spending somewhere between 9 and 40 years in prison. For the time being, it is unclear when the two women will make their first appearance in court.
According to The State Journal-Register, the meth lab was pulled apart shortly after being discovered. While busy dismantling it, authorities accidentally started a fire. Luckily, nobody was injured in this incident, and the flames caused very little damage to the church's basement.
Talking to the press, members of the congregation said that they had never before been faced with such problem. “We've had some teenagers go into the sanctuary, light candles, and sign the guest book. They horsed around, but there wasn't any vandalism,” church piano player Roberta Meyer said in a statement.