Early Thursday morning on April 19 th , 2018, the Chadron Police Department received a tip from a citizen regarding the alleged manufacturing of methamphetamine in Chadron. Throughout the day, officers were able to corroborate information they had received from the citizen and applied for a search warrant on two hotel rooms at the Best Western in Chadron. The warrant was issued for methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, packaging materials, and evidence of the manufacturing of methamphetamine. While serving the search warrants, officers located an area
just south of the hotel, where it appeared that several attempts were made to manufacture methamphetamine buy using a “shake and bake” method in a pop bottle. “It appears that they were missing one or two key ingredients for the process to be successful, but they did make four or five attempts. If you happened to come across items like this, (pictured below) please contact your local law enforcement agency as soon as possible. The liquid and containers can be dangerous,” say Lieutenant Rick Hickstein.

During the search of the hotel rooms, officers found items such as cold packs and coffee filters that can be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, and similar cold packs, filters and pop bottles were also found where the attempts where located by police. Officers were able to locate a male identified as 44 year old Phillip L. Shealy II of South Carolina, who occupied one of the hotel rooms. Mr. Shealy was in Chadron working on a local construction project. The subsequent investigation lead to Mr. Shealy’s arrest for a Criminal attempt to manufacture methamphetamine, 28-201, a class III Felony. He was transported to the Dawes County Jail and his bound is 10% of $50,000.00. Also during the search officers issued a citation to 47 year old Scott M Martin of Georgia, for possession of marijuana less than one ounce and possession of drug paraphernalia. Martin was working on the same construction project as Shealy.

Officers found pop bottles, lighter fluid, coffee filters, baggie with a crystal substance, soda bottles with tubes, tubbing, cold compresses, Morton salt, aluminum foil, marijuana, pipes and rolling papers during the searches.

“We were able to locate this “shake and bake” methamphetamine production through a tip from a citizen. We will always encourage citizens to report suspicious activities to police. If you see something say something! Working together we can make our community safer,” says Lieutenant Rick Hickstein.

The Chadron Police Department was assisted by the Chadron Fire Department, the Nebraska State Patrol and the WING Drug Task Force.