Flint Michigan inventor suspected of operating a meth lab
September 28, 2008
A process server who had come to the home of 54 year-old, Joseph Donnelly, noticed something unusual about his home. Something so unusual, that it required he make a 911 call to the local police. When police and firefighters responded to the call for help, they discovered containers of unmarked chemicals and equipment - the makings of a meth lab. But, a search of the home for meth came up empty. It didn’t surprise Donnelly. He was making something that he knew was worth much more than methampethamine.
Donnelly, according to neighbors, was “different”. One neighbor, who has known him for nearly 40 years, recalled earlier that day that Donnelly had had asked her if he could store some things at her home, to which she agreed. She said there was never any mention of any chemicals though. Another neighbor commented that he never smelled anything strange coming from Donnelly’s home, either.
As police piled up filled garbage bags and other items they found on Joe Donnelly’s front lawn, he wondered why his home was the scene of a police investigation. He told them that he wasn’t doing anything illegal and that he was a patent-holding inventor. Police didn’t buy the story and ushered Donnelly over to a police squad car and asked him to have a seat in the back, while they waited for a HazMat team to arrive. And that is where the neighbor who was now harboring some of his belongings asked him if he was making methamphetamine. She told police that he assured her that he wasn’t.
Police decided to err on the side of caution and see what the experts thought about what they’d found - a cube truck sealed with a deadbolt lock that discovered held burners, hot pans, and plastic jugs of chemicals. When they didn’t find any meth at his home, they wondered if they were looking at the kinds of materials that could used to make bombs. That’s when they called in a bomb expert and sent digital pictures to the FBI. All Joe Donnelly could do was sit and wait it out.
Both the bomb expert and the FBI determined that what they’d found were not the right kinds of materials needed to build bombs. Joe Donnelly knew that. He’d tried to tell them that he was trying to invent an alternative fuel that would replace gasoline. But, police weren’t going to take any chances about protecting the safety of his neighbors. The chemicals that Donnelly was storing to create his substitute for gas, they said were highly explosive and flammable. Joe Donnelly was not charged, according a report of the incident by the Flint Journal.
Source: Mickle, Bryn, “Police find no meth in chemical filled Burton home”, Mlive.com, 8/15/08, http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/08/police_find_no_meth_in_chemica.html
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