Man Admits Drug-Making Purchases

A 24-year-old man confessed that he bought chemicals for the manufacture of drugs on 10 occasions before he supplied them to the operator of a clandestine Van Nuys methamphetamine laboratory in which three people died after inhaling toxic fumes, a police officer testified Wednesday.

Russell Blackwood, of Vista in San Diego County, is charged with three counts of second-degree murder in the October, 1986, deaths of David Michael Smith, 20, of Vista, his brother Christopher Richard Smith, 27, and Lisa Ann Cross, 20, both of Van Nuys, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carole Anne Chizever said.

Blackwood is being prosecuted under a state law that permits a second-degree murder charge if a death occurs during the commission of an dangerous felony. He is also charged with manufacturing methamphetamine, known as “speed,” and with possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell.

Chizever said during a motion hearing that Blackwood was a key player in a drug-manufacturing ring. But his attorney, Larry H. Farinholt, maintained that Blackwood was merely a “go-fer,” who supplied chemicals to the three people who were killed. Farinholt said that Blackwood had no involvement in the actual manufacture of the drug.

“There is no evidence that he was at the scene of the ‘cook,’ ” Farinholt said.

Detective Lyle Mayer of the Los Angeles Police Department testified at the hearing that Blackwood said he bought the chemical ingredients to produce methamphetamine at a laboratory in Vista. Blackwood said he had bought similar chemicals there on 10 previous occasions, Mayer testified. Mayer did not specify for whom Blackwood had made the other purchases.

Mayer said Blackwood told him that part of the money used to buy the chemicals for the Van Nuys lab was given to him by David Michael Smith, whose partner, Jeffrey Schankel, also faces charges of second-degree murder and manufacturing methamphetamine in the incident. Schankel is still at large.

Mayer also testified that Blackwood said he was to get one-third of the profits from the eventual sale of the methamphetamine from the makeshift lab in a duplex on Densmore Avenue.

Police said Blackwood told them that he had received a telephone call in Vista at about 10 p.m. on Oct. 4 from David Smith, who said something had gone wrong and all three in the duplex were ill. Blackwood said he drove from Vista to Van Nuys and found Christopher Smith and Lisa Cross dead and David Smith very ill. He said he tried to drive David Smith to a hospital, but Smith died en route.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Candace D. Cooper heared Mayer’s testimony to determine whether she will approve a motion by Farinholt asking that statements Blackwood made to police not be allowed into evidence at his trial. The trial is scheduled to start after the motion hearing, which is scheduled to continue Monday.

Farinholt is also seeking to suppress the admission of evidence indicating that chemicals used in the production of methamphetamine were found in the trunk of the car Blackwood was driving.