Vista Company Not Identified : Firm Tied to 3 Drug-Lab Deaths Raided

Los Angeles police, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department investigators and federal drug agents seized documents Wednesday from a Vista company that allegedly sold chemicals used in a Van Nuys drug lab where three people died after inhaling toxic fumes.

Boxes of sales receipts and other records were taken from the company, which authorities declined to identify, but there were no arrests, said Jim Welch, a Los Angeles narcotics detective.

Among the chemicals in the building were large quantities of red phosphorus, hydriodic acid and ephedrine, which are used to make methamphetamine, a drug known as “crank” or “speed” that is similar to cocaine.

“It’s a new building, a real nice place. But, if you removed everything from that business that could be used to manufacture methamphetamines, there would be nothing left,” Welch said.

Police decided to search the chemical business after finding chemical sales receipts in the clandestine methamphetamine lab, housed in a duplex in Van Nuys, where the three were overcome Sunday by poisonous fumes.

Christopher Richard Smith, 27, and Lisa Ann Cross, 20, died at the duplex, where they resided. Smith’s brother, David Michael Smith, 20, of Vista, died while being driven to a hospital by a friend, Russell Blackwood, 22, also of Vista.

Blackwood is being held in Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail on three counts of second-degree murder and one count each of manufacturing methamphetamines and conspiracy to manufacture the drug.

Prosecutors filed the charges under a state law that permits murder charges if a death occurs because of an inherently dangerous crime. The law was used in the prosecution of Cathy Evelyn Smith in the drug-overdose death of comedian John Belushi.

Investigators believe the fumes were generated when the hot mixture of red phosphorus, ephedrine and hydriodic acid was siphoned through a plastic garden hose used as a substitute for glass tubing. The surgical phase of autopsies on the three failed to reveal a cause of death, but toxicology tests on blood and tissue samples from the three have not been analyzed, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said.

At the time the bodies were discovered, police said they hoped prosecutors would be able to file murder charges against the company that sold the chemicals used in the lab. But Welch said Thursday that such a possibility is “very remote.”

It is not illegal to possess or sell chemicals used to make methamphetamine and other drugs, such as PCP and synthetic heroin, unless it can be proven that the seller knew beforehand that the chemicals would be used to make illegal drugs.

About the only way to prove prior knowledge is through the use of electronic surveillance, informers or undercover officers posing as buyers or sellers, Welch said. The business searched Wednesday had not been investigated previously, he said.