Tennessee raccoon barbecue leads to (surprise!) a meth bust

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Who among us hasn’t barbecued a raccoon in a Tennessee parking lot and then gotten caught up in a meth bust?

On Monday, Memphis, Tenn., police arrested 26-year-old Adam Eubank on suspicion of manufacturing methamphetamine after his brother, Alex Eubank, held a late-night critter cookout outside an apartment complex. That cookout drew the attention of the police.

Local TV channel KSDK interviewed the men’s less-than-terrified neighbors to get to the bottom of the story.

“Pretty shocked,” neighbor Shelton Russell said, with something akin to a smile. “I… I mean, it’s a raccoon, I don’t know. Where’d they find it?”

“They said they were using it [the fire] to dry their clothes,” added neighbor Chris Phillip, who told KSDK the brothers were known as “the squirrel brothers” for once skinning a squirrel in an apartment common area.

Several people were standing around the fire, KSDK reported, and there was a futon nearby; one man had large knives. When the police showed up, they noticed buckets containing some suspicious material, so they investigated Eubanks’ apartment.

Adam Eubank, who was inside the apartment, didn’t let the police in and didn’t answer questions, according to an affidavit provided to The Times. They arrested him after discovering he’d bought pseudoephedrine — a cold medicine that’s a key ingredient in meth — 35 times in a year.

Alex Eubank was questioned but not arrested.

--Matt Pearce in Kansas City, Mo.
Twitter.com/mattdpearce

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